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Eng4  by  H.B.Hall.. 


From  tke  Original    Pabtmg  ld 
Vol.  L   n  .  VI 


THE 


LIFE  AND  PUBLIC  SERVICES 


OP 


SAMUEL    ADAMS, 


BEING 


A  NARRATIVE  OF  HIS  ACTS  AND  OPINIONS,  AND  OF  HIS  AGENCY 
IN  PRODUCING  AND  FORWARDING  THE 


AMERICAN    REVOLUTION. 


EXTRACTS  FROM   HIS  CORRESPONDENCE,   STATE  PAPERS, 
AND  POLITICAL  ESSAYS. 


BY 

WILLIAM/f."  WELLS 


VOL.    I. 


BOSTON: 
LITTLE,    BROWN,    AND    COMPANY. 

1865. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1865.  by 

WILLIAM     V.     WELLS, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


^ 


University  Press  :  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co., 
Cambridge. 


E  302, 


I  .6 

I  '      /UW4 

*  V  / 


AS 

A  TESTIMONIAL  OF  AFFECTION  AND  ESTEEM, 

THESE    VOLUMES 

ARE   RESPECTFULLY   INSCRIBED  TO 

GEORGE    A.    SIMMONS,    Esq., 

OF   ROXBURY,   MASS., 
BY  HIS   SINCERE  AND  LIFE-LONG  FRIEND, 

THE    AUTHOR. 


INTRODUCTION 


An  eminent  statesman  has  said,  that  a  "  Life  of  Samuel 
Adams  is  the  one  niche  remaining  to  be  filled  in  American 
biography."  It  will  not  be  questioned  that,  considering  his 
entire  self-devotion  to  the  welfare  of  his  countrymen,  to- 
gether with  the  oblivion  which  has  enshrouded  all  but  his 
mere  name,  an  attempt  at  restoration  is  as  much  a  necessity 
to  those  who  revere  virtue  and  exalted  patriotism  as  it  is  a 
duty  we  owe  to  his  memory. 

"If,"  wrote  John  Adams,  in  1819,  "the  American  Eevolution 
was  a  blessing,  and  not  a  curse,  the  name  and  character  of  Samuel 
Adams  ought  to  be  preserved.  It  will  bear  a  strict  and  critical  ex- 
amination even  by  the  inveterate  malice  of  his  enemies.  A  syste- 
matic course  has  been  pursued  for  thirty  years  to  run  him  down. 
His  merits  and  services  and  sacrifices  and  sufferings  are  beyond 
all  calculation." 

Circumstances  have  for  many  years  prevented  the  pro- 
duction of  a  work,  to  write  which  completely,  it  has  been 
asserted,  would  be  to  repeat  the  story  of  the  Revolution. 
And  it  is  perhaps  better  that  it  has  been  so  long  deferred. 
With  the  additional  facts  which  time  has  brought  to  light, 

/it  is  likely  that  inaccuracies  in  a  book  written  forty  years 
/ 
ago  might  now  be  discovered.     Placed  nearer  to  the  statue, 

the  biographer  would  not  have  clearly  discerned  its  true 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

proportions  ;  its  contour  and  character  are  more  correctly 
\een  from  a  distance. 

As  early  as  1815,  the  late  Samuel  Adams  Wells  com- 
menced gathering,  from  various  sources,  the  papers  of  his 
,  grandfather,  with  the  view  to  publication.     The  enterprise 
was  based  on  a  profound  veneration  for  the  man,  and  an 
/intelligent  appreciation,  enhanced  by  family  tradition,  of 
'  his  great  services.     It  was  pursued  at  intervals  until  he  had 
!  prepared  a  history  of  the  Revolution  up  to  the  year  1777, 
of  which  a  few  chapters  had  been  printed,  when  the  death 
of  the  writer  put  an  end  to  the  work.     Not  long  afterwards, 
'<  the  papers  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Hon.  George  Ban- 
croft, for  whose  History  they  have  supplied  valuable  mate- 
rial.     To  the   genius,  love  of  truth,  and   discriminating 
(  judgment  of  that  historian  is  greatly  due  the  increasing  lus- 
tre which  time  is  shedding  on  the  name  of  Samuel  Adams. 

If  at  any  time  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
the  Revolution  had  proved  a  failure,  Samuel  Adams  would 
probably  have  been  the  first  victim  on  the  scaffold.  All 
contemporary  evidence  goes  to  show  that,  as  the  "  Arch 
Manager "  and  "  Chief  Incendiary,"  on  him  at  least  must 
have  fallen  the  royal  vengeance.  While,  then,  the  righteous 
principle  of  the  Revolution  is  admitted,  and  posterity  has 
reaped  the  benefits  resulting  from  its  successful  achieve- 
ment, it  is  but  justice  that  his  part  in  the  great  drama 
should  be  ascertained.  The  study  and  research  inseparable 
from  Bancroft's  literary  labors  left  no  reason  to  hope  that 
he  could  devote  the  attention  necessary  to  a  biography  em- 
bracing such  a  succession  of  events ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the 
longer  the  work  was  delayed  the  less  likelihood  there  was 


INTRODUCTION.  Vll 

that  it  would  ever  be  begun.  Scarcely  realizing  the  require- 
ments for  an  undertaking  which,  properly,  could  only  be 
warranted  by  a  position  of  literary  leisure,  the  author, 
though  distrustful  as  to  his  own  fitness,  determined  to  apply 
to  Mr.  Bancroft  for  access  to  the  Adams  papers,  which  had 
then  lain  many  years  in  the  historian's  library.  Permission 
was  promptly  given,  and  they  were  carefully  gleaned,  while 
their  proprietor  facilitated  the  design  with  kind  advice  and 
direction. 

But  this  acquisition  only  showed  how  much  remained  to 
be  done,  and  that  hardly  the  threshold  of  the  work  had 
been  crossed.  American  history  had  to  be  read  and  reread, 
/until  a  proper  understanding  could  be  gained  of  its  relation 
to  the  political  course  of  Adams.  Town  records,  files  of 
old  newspapers,  pamphlets,  and  circulars  were  to  be  exam- 
ined and  compared,  public  archives  in  different  States  and 
in  the  London  State  Paper  Office  consulted,  and  the  col- 
lections of  antiquarian  and  historical  societies  patiently 
searched.  Interviews  were  sought  with  aged  persons  who 
had  known  Samuel  Adams,  or  had  lived  near  him ;  but  in 
nearly  every  instance  time  had  effaced  all  recollection  of 
particular  events.  The  last  of  the  preceding  generation 
who  had  witnessed  his  public  career  had  passed  away,  and 
with  them  much  of  the  fund  of  interesting  reminiscence 
and  anecdote  always  so  valuable  in  illustrating  character. 
Only  brief  and  imperfect  sketches  could  be  found  in  ency- 
clopaedias and  biographical  dictionaries,  in  some  his  very 
name  being  omitted ;  and  the  story  had  to  be  created  out 
of  fragments  gathered  here  and  there.  The  course  of 
Adams  has  thus  been  followed  through  the  leading  events 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

^of  the  Revolution,  —  sometimes  his  action  ascertained  every 
month  in  the  year,  —  and  this  is  as  close  an  approach  to 
continuity  as  is  now  possible.     The  careful  tracing  of  some 

.(thread  of  evidence,  both  by  correspondence  and  personal 
investigation,  oftentimes  ended  in  total  disappointment,  or, 
at  best,  afforded  the  material  for  only  a  few  lines. 

When,  by  reason  of  unavoidable  delays  and  constant  de- 
mands upon  the  time  of  the  author  in  an  editorial  capacity, 
/  five  years  had  been  expended,  he  was  disposed  to  transfer 
what  he  had  collected  to  any  gentleman  whose  scholarly 
attainments  and  leisure  would  be  better  adapted  to  weaving 
it  into  a  biography  worthy  the  character  and  times  to  be 
treated.  The  whole  was  arranged  in  chronological  order, 
with  notes  and  references,  ready  for  a  comparatively  speedy 
completion ;  but  time  passed  on,  and  it  was  plain  that  if  the 
work  was  to  be  finished,  it  must  be  by  the  hand  that  be- 
gan it.     And  perhaps  such  a  narration  could  appear  at  no 

/time  more  appropriately  than  at  the  commencement  of  the 
great  centennials  of  the  Revolution,  and  when  treason  has 
just  been  defeated  in  an  attempt  to  overthrow  the  goodly 
heritage  of  freedom  which  the  subject  of  these  memoirs 
toiled  so  long  and  arduously  to  secure.  The  example  pre- 
sented by  his  disinterested  desire  for  the  advancement  of 
his  country,  his  incorruptible  integrity  and  republican  sim- 
plicity of  character,  cannot  be  entirely  thrown  away,  how- 
ever imperfectly  delineated. 

Care  has  been  taken  not  to  lose  the  individuality  of 
the  man  in  a  too  copious  account  of  general  events  ;  but 
rather  to  keep  sight  of  him  at  all  times,  and  only  briefly 
depart  from  his  immediate   actions  when   such   digression 


INTRODUCTION.  IX 

would  tend  to  illustrate  the  central  figure.  The  correspond- 
/  ence,  pamphlets,  state  papers,  and  controversial  essays  with 

/  the  Loyalist  writers,  which  would  be  included  in  a  complete 
collection  of  his  works,  while  exhibiting  the  immensity  and 

\  importance  of  his  labors,  would  furnish  matter  for  many 
volumes  ;  but  the  publication  of  them  seemed  to  be  inconsis- 
tent with  the  original  design,  which  has  been  to  condense 

*  the  material  into  as  narrow  a  compass  as  the  subject  would 
admit.  Thus,  in  order  to  confine  the  work  within  ordinary 
/limits,  only  extracts  in  most  cases  have  been  given  from  his 
\  writings.  These  are  silent  evidences  of  his  amazing  indus- 
try, his  courage,  ceaseless  vigilance,  and  wise  statesmanship, 
and  his  cheerfulness  and  fortitude  amid  disasters.     They 

,  :  display  his  early  championship  of  Colonial  rights  long  prior 
to  the  taxation  disputes ;  his  positive  principles  at  the  dawn- 
ing of  the  Revolution ;  his  far  seeing,  yet  prudent  measures 
,  for  effecting  a  separation  from  the  mother  country,  when 

s  redress  of  grievances  was  evidently  hopeless ;  his  ingenious 
and  gradual  direction  of  public  opinion  into  an  habitual  con- 
templation of  Independence  ;  his  master  agency  in  carrying 
that  measure  in  the  Congress  of  1776 ;  his  Congressional 
services  during  the  war ;  his  hopes  and  anxieties  for  the 
young  republic  after  the  peace ;  and  his  deep  solicitude  for 
the  preservation  of  the  National  Union  when,  towards  the 
close  of  the  century,  while  he  was  Governor  of  Massachusetts, 
partisan  strife  had  assumed  a  bitterness  scarcely  paralleled 
in  any  country.  The  intention,  in  fine,  has  been  to  repre- 
sent him  as  he  appeared  to  those  who  personally  knew  him, 
i  — friends  and  enemies,  —  to  show  the  great  space  he  filled 
in  the  Revolution,  and  to  disclose,  by  means  of  his  own 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

private  letters  and  trustworthy  contemporary  evidence,  the 
measures  hy  which  he  aided  so  largely  in  accomplishing 
American  liberty. 

A  portion  only  remains  of  the  manuscript  papers  left  by 
the  patriot.  Soon  after  his  death,  they  were  placed  by  his 
executors  in  the  keeping  of  Benjamin  Austin,  Esq.,  who  in- 
tended to  write  the  Life  of  Adams ;  but  finding  that  the 
preparation  of  the  work  would  occupy  more  time  than  he 
had  expected,  and  believing  that  the  proper  period  had  not 
then  arrived  for  their  publication,  he  renounced  the  task, 
and  they  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  laid  neglected  for 
some  years  in  the  possession  of  those  who  knew  not  their 
value,  and  were  careless  as  to  their  preservation.  Before 
attention  had  been  directed  to  it,  inroads  upon  the  most 
precious  were  made ;  sometimes  by  the  descendants  of  Mr. 
Adams's  correspondents  seeking  memorials  of  their  ances- 
tors ;  at  others,  by  persistent  autograph  hunters,  who  were 
allowed  unrestricted  liberty  to  carry  off  the  most  illus- 
trious signatures ;  and.  to  the  ravages  of  time  should  be 
added  their  destruction  by  children,  and,  more  vexatious 
still,  by  an  ignorant  servant,  who  used  no  inconsiderable 
portion  to  kindle  fires.  There  is  also  reason  to  believe 
that  letters  were  abstracted  early  in  the  present  century 
by  persons  interested  in  their  suppression.  It  was  now 
that  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  Wells,  as  above  stated,  became 
aroused  to  the  importance  of  preserving  what  remained,  and 
carefully  collected  all  that  could  then  be  recovered.  How 
extensive  they  must  once  have  been,  even  after  Samuel 
Adams  himself  had  destroyed  such  as  his  thoughtfulness 
for  others  forbade  him  to  preserve,  may  be  inferred  from 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

the  fact  that,  in  1804,  as  recorded  by  a  member  of  the 
family,  trunks  and  boxes  were  filled,  and  shelves  around  the 
walls  of  the  garret  piled  high  with  letters  and  documents, 
many  of  them  in  the  handwriting  of  the  late  Governor. 
There  yet  remain  his  original  rough  drafts  of  celebrated 
state  papers  of  the  Revolution,  prior  to  the  war,  some  entire, 
and  of  others  only  the  fragments.  The  paternity  of  num- 
bers of  these,  as  well  as  of  political  essays  of  that  period, 
has,  until  the  appearance  of  Bancroft's  later  volumes,  been 
claimed  for  one  and  another  of  his  contemporaries,  —  a 
natural,  but  unfortunate,  consequence  of  Samuel  Adams's 
entire  disregard  for  the  honors  of  authorship.  The  royal 
Governors  in  their  secret  letters  to  the  Ministry,  now  first 
published,  have  in  some  measure  compensated  for  this  by 
repeatedly  denouncing  him  as  the  author.  The  accuracy 
of  their  information,  which  was  probably  furnished  by  hired 
spies  or  Loyalists  in  the  Legislature,  is  attested  by  such  of  his 
original  compositions  as  have  been  preserved  in  manuscript. 
The  collection  of  letters  as  they  now  exist,  together  with 
others  more  recently  discovered,  embraces  a  correspondence 
with  the  principal  characters  of  the  Revolution,  including 
Joseph  Warren,  Benjamin  Franklin,  George  Washington, 
Samuel  Cooper,  James  Warren,  James  Otis,  Paul  Revere, 
James  Lovell,  General  Roberdeau,  J.  Pickering,  Elbridge 
Gerry,  Dr.  Cotton  Tufts,  the  Count  de  Vergennes,  James 
Sullivan,  Governor  Trumbull,  Judge  Marchant,  Peter  Tim- 
othy, Richard  Henry  Lee,  John  Dickinson,  Stephen  Sayre, 
John  Wilkes,  Arthur  Lee,  John  Langdon,  Samuel  Mather, 
Joseph  Hawley,  President  Weare,  Benjamin  Kent,  Jonathan 
Scollay,  Governor  Ward,  Dennys  Deberdt,  John  Hancock, 
John    Lowell,    Colonel  Barrd,   General  Burgoyne,   James 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 


Smith,  John  Morin  Scott,  George  Read,  Christopher  Gads- 
den, Israel  Putnam,  Thomas  McKean,  William  Lee,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  General  Howe,  Silas  .Deane,  Noah  Webster,  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Lucerne,  General  Alexander  Macdougal, 
General  Gates,  Thomas  Young,  Josiah  Quincy,  Richard 
Jackson,  John  Pitts,  Judge  Bryan,  John  Winthrop,  S.  P. 
Savage,  Dr.  Chauncy,  Governor  George  Clinton,  General 
.Greene,  Governor  Thomas  Johnson,  General  John  Sullivan, 
General  John  Fellows,  James  Bowdoin,  The  Baron  de  Steu- 
ben, Thomas  Chittenden,  Charles  Thompson,  Stephen  Hop- 
kins, Benjamin  Church,  Roger  Sherman,  Thomas  Paine, 
/  and  various  prominent  friends  of  liberty  in  England,  with 
{  whom  Adams  maintained  an  anonymous  correspondence, 
some  of  them  furnishing  him  with  secret  information.  Au- 
tograph letters  to  or  from  most,  of  these  have  been  saved, 
—  in  some  instances,  probably,  all  that  ever  passed  be- 
tween the  writers,  but  oftener  only  small  portions.  In 
connection  with  Revolutionary  occurrences,  they  form  an 
intelligible  key  to  his  life,  extending  through  the  heroic  age 
of  America,  and  exhibit  the  secret  springs  of  his  most  im- 
portant political  actions. 

The  author  is  under  lasting  obligations  to  several  mem- 
bers of  historical  and  other  literary  societies,  who  have 
interested  themselves  in  procuring  copies  of  records  and 
papers  which  were  beyond  his  reach,  and  have  cheerfully 
responded  to  troublesome  queries,  involving  an  expenditure 
of  time  and  attention  which  in  some  instances  could  ill  be 
spared.  The  continual  use  of  data  thus  furnished  is  the 
best  evidence  how  indispensable  it  has  proved. 

W.  V.  w. 

Boston,  December,  1865. 


CHRONOLOGY 

OF   THE 

LIFE    OF    SAMUEL    ADAMS 
VOL.  I. 


1722. 

Page 
Sept.  16  (0.  S.).  Samuel  Adams  is  born,  in  Boston         ...  4 

.  1736. 
He  enters  Harvard  College 5,  6 

1740. 
He  is  graduated 6 

1740-43. 
He  studies  law,  enters  a  counting-house,  and  finally  be- 
comes his  father's  partner.  —  His  father  is  embarrassed 
by  the  dissolution  of  the  Land  Bank     .        .        .        .       6-13 

1743. 
He  takes  his  Master's  degree,  deiimring  a  thesis  on.  re- 
sistance to  the  power-of  the  supreme  magistrate      . 

1746. 
His  father  is  elected  a  Bepresentative  of  Boston         .         .       13,  14 

1747. 
Adams  and  a  few  friends  form  a  political  club  .         .  15^^ 

1748. 
The  club  publish  "  The  Public  Advertiser"      .         .         .      15-23 
March.      His  father  dies,  and  he  succeeds  to  his  business,  brewing     .       23,  24 

1749. 
Oct.  17.    He  marries  Elizabeth  Checkley 25 

1750,  etc. 
He  becomes  a  frequent  writer  in  the  newspapers  in  de- 
fence of  Colonial  rights 30  -  34  X 


1 


/ 


XIV 


CHRONOLOGY. 


July  25. 


7s   i/$5r 


i  X 


Dec.  6. 


fc^  •• 


X    August. 
—  Sept.  18. 


v/ 


Oct. 

7-25 

Oct. 

24. 

^ 

29> 

Oct., 

,  Nov. 

Nov. 

7. 

Nov.  8. 

Nov. 

,  Dec. 

Dec. 

21. 

1757. 
His  wife  dies,  leaving  two  children        .         .         .         ,  25 

1758. 

He  resists  a  sheriff's  attachment  on  the  family  estate, 
arising  from  the  unsettled  affairs  of  the  Land  Bank     .      25-29 

1760. 
Francis  Bernard  succeeds  Thomas  Pownall  as  Governor       39  -42 

1763-65.  \y^ 

Adams  is  tax-collector,  and  has  much  trouble  on  ac- 
count of  the  inability  of  many  to  pay  their  taxes  .      35-38 

1764. 

He  liberates  a  slave  who  had  been  given  to  Mrs.  Adams*~         138  \S 
He  drafts  the  Boston  instructions  protesting  against  Par-yr 

liamentary  taxation "    46-43  \*s 

He  brings  about  the  first  union  of  the  Colonies  to  oppose 

the  measures  of  Parliament "49,  50V^ 

Address  to  Parliament  for  the  repeal  of  the  Sugar  Act, 

perhaps  written  by  Adams h\Cr* 

Adams  marries  his  second  wife,  Elizabeth  Wells        .  53,  54 

1765. 
The  Stamp  Act  passed,  despite  the  eloquence  of  Barr£ 

and  others        .         .         .-.,... 
Riot  in  Boston  on  account  of  the  Act.  —  Origin  of  the 

Sons  of  Liberty 

Adams  again  drafts  the  Boston  instructions  . 
He  enters  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  which  is  imme- 
diately prorogued     .         .         .         .         .         •  70,  71  — — 
Colonial  Congress  at  New  York        ...         64,  65,  67,  80^ 
The  Legislature  reassembles  and  Adams  replies  to  the 

Governor's  opening  address  of  Sept.  25      .         .         .      71-74  — ■ 
He  writes  the  Massachusetts  Resolves  on  the  rights  and 

privileges  of  the  Province 74-77*— 

Opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act;   also  to  the  additional/ 
guard  at  Castle  William,  on  which  Adams  writes  a  re/ 

port,  Nov.  6  78-80 

Adams  instructs  the  Massachusetts  agent  in  London  .         80-82 

The  Legislature  is  prorogued 82 

The  Province  distressed  by  the  effects  of  the  Stamp  Act       82  -  85 
Adams  writes  instructions  to  Deberdt  ....  103-105 


CHRONOLOGY. 


XV 


1765-68. 
He  is  still  harassed  on  account  of  the  uncollected  taxes, 
but  is  finally  discharged  from  all  liability  by  a  vote  of 
the  Town 38 


f* 


42 


# 


1766. 
Jan.,  Feb.    Debates  in  Parliament  on  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  .  106-109  ;\ 
Jan.  15,  etc.  The  Massachusetts  Legislature  meets.  —  Adams  replies 
to  the  Governor's  Speech  of  Nov.  8,  1765,  answers  a 
letter  of  Deberdt  to  the  House,  and  acts  on  many  com- 
mittees, especially  on  that  to  consider  the  closing  of 
the  courts  of  justice.  —  The  Court  adjourned,  Feb.  24    110  —  114 
He  replies  for  Boston  to  a  letter  of  sympathy  from  Ply- 
mouth       119 

Adams  re-elected  Kepresentative,  and,  on  the  meeting  of 
the  General  Court,  May  28,  chosen  Clerk.  —  He  con- 
ducts a  controversy  with  the  Governor  on  the  election 

of  Councillors 120-122 

Celebration  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  .         .         .114-116 
Dispute  of  the  House  with  the  Governor  on  the  indem- 
nification of  the  sufferers  by  the  Stamp  Act  riot. — 
Adams  composes  the  reply  of  the  House,  June  24         .  122  -  125 
Oct.  -  Dec.  After  much  discussion,  the  House,  influenced  by  Haw- 
ley,  grant  indemnification  126-128 

Oct.  '  The  House  and  the  Town  take  into  consideration  the 

misrepresentations  of  the  crown  officers      .     •    .         .    129,  130 
Dec.  Dennis  Deberdt  appointed  special  agent  in  London  for 

the  Assembly  .......  130 1 


March  24. 


){  May  6. 


May  19. 
June. 


— •       -A 


Dec. 


Adam's  opposes  qHarTenng  the  royal  troops  on  the  Prov- 
ince        .         .         . 


131-133 


March  16. 


X  March  16. 


\ 


May. 

May  27. 

June  29. 
bee.  30. 

Jan.  13. 


1767. 

Adams  writes  the  Assembly's  letter  to  Deberdt  on  Hutch- 
inson's attempt  to  force  himself  into  the  Council  .  134-137 

The  Town  of  Boston  advocates  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  Massachusetts  Ay^^y  %.  &£****,  C^f^^r-^j   XZ^^^ 

The  dispute  on  quartering  the  troops  reopened  by  the 
arrival  of  the  14th  Foot 141,  142_^ 

The  Legislature  meets,  and  elects  Adams  Clerk. — It  is 
prorogued,  June  25  .... 

Townshend's  new  scheme  of  taxation  adopted 

The  Legislature  meets 


141 
143,  144v 
152 


1768. 


Adams  writes  to  Deberdt  the  Assembly*^  letter,  after- 
wards published  in  London  in  "  The  True  Sentiments 
of  America" 152- 


158,  180 


xvi      \      I  CHRONOLOGY. 

Jan.,  Feb.  He  writes  the  Assembly's  addresses  to  the  Ministry, 
their  petition  to  the  King,  and  a  Circular  Letter  to 
the  other  Provincial  Assemblies    •.         .        158-167,  172-  174  ^ 

Jan.  21.        A  motion  to  invite  the  other  Assemblies  to  join  in  the 

petition  to  the  King  is  lost        .         .         »         ,         .  169 1^ 

Feb.  4.  A  similar  motion  carried,  and  the  Circular  Letter,  dated 

Feb.  11,  written  by  Adams. — Its  results         .        170-173,  179-^^, 

Feb.  The  House  demand  and  obtain  a  letter  of  Shelburne  to 
Bernard.  —  The  letter  reveals  Bernard's  misrepresenta- 
tions        174,  175 

Feb.  26.\.y  Resolutions  passed  for  the  encouragement  of  manufac- 
tures in  the  Province 176 

March  4.       The  Legislature  is  prorogued  .         .         .         .         116,  117 

March  18.  The  anniversary  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  celebrat- 
ed peaceably 177,  178 

April.  The  Privy  Council  order  Bernard  to  direct  the  Assembly 

to  rescind  their  Circular  Letter  ....  180— — 

May  25,  26.  The  General  Court  meets.  —  Hutchinson  again  defeated 

in  the  election  of  Councillors 183    . 

June.  Troops  and  a  fleet  ordered  to  Boston         .         .         .  185*-  ■*• 

June  10.        Hancock's  sloop  Liberty  seized  by  the  crown  officers. — 

Indignation  of  the  people.  —  The  Collector's  boat  burnt  186—189  -%*■» 

June  14.       Meeting  of  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty,"  who  send  an  address 

to  the  Governor,  drawn  up  by  Otis         .         .         .        189,  190 

June  17.       John  Adams  writes  the  Boston  Instructions  .         .         .  191  «•■    ■■ 

June  30.        The  House  refuse  to  rescind  their  Circular  Letter.  — 
They  despatch  a  letter  to  Lord  Hillsborough  written  by 
Adams.  —  Adams  discusses  the  subject  in  the  Assem- 
bly's answer  to  the  Governor's  message.  —  Otis  opposes  # 
the  publication  of  the  letter.  —  The  Court  prorogued     192-  198««i»» 
Adams  begins  to  labor  for  American  Independence       .           20'Zhhb 
The  third  anniversary  of  the  Stamp  Act  riot  celebrated    203,  204 
A  town  meeting  held  to  consider  the  expected  arrival  of 
British  troops.  —  Otis,  Adams,  and  Warren  draw  up  re- 
solves. —  The  citizens  adopt  a  "  Declaration  "  that  they 
"  will  not  submit,"  and  call  for  a  convention  of  dele- 
gates from  the  towns     212-215,283^^ 

Sept.  22-27.  The  convention  held. — Its  proceedings.  —  Otis's  ab- 
sence        215  —  218 

Sept.  27.       The  14th  and   29th  regiments   arrive.  —  The  14th  is 

allowed  by  the  Sons  of  Liberty  to  sleep  in  Faneuil  Hall   218,  219  ■    m, 

Oct.  Disputes  between  the  Council  and  General  Gage  in  re- 

gard to  the  maintenance  of  the  troops.  —  The  soldiers 
desert.  —  Adams  saves  one  from  the  lash         .         .      220  -  223— — «• 

Nov.  Debates  in  Parliament  on  American  affairs  .         .         .  225  -  228 

Nov.,  Dec.    Difficulties  between  the  troops  and  the  towns-people.       229— 234.JL* 


X 


CHRONOLOGY.  XVU 

1769. 
Jan.              Evidence  to  convict  the  patriots  of  treason  sought  unsuc- 
cessfully   236,  237 

/    Jan.  23.        The  deposition  of  Richard  Sylvester  against  Adams  .      209-211 
J     Jan.,  Feb.     Eurther  debates  in  Parliament  on  American  affairs.  — 

Eloquence  of  Burke,  Barre,  etc.     .         .  235,  236,  244,  247 

March  13.     Public  meeting  to  vindicate  the  town   ....  246 

March  18.     Adams  publishes  an  address  "  To  the  Sons  of  Liberty  "  "17    *Mft- 
March  27.     He  defends  Dr.  Chauncy  against  the  Rev.  Mr.  Seabury    249,  250 
April  4.     -  The  Town  adopts  a  petition  to  the  King  and  a  letter  "*■*- 

\     jtoBarrrvmiCe'tf fry"%a^msP"~~        7        ...   246,  247^*-« 
y  April.        V$hange  in  the  policy  of  the  Ministry  towards  the  Colo- 
nies ;  the  late  duties  are  removed  from  all  articles  ex- 
cept tea,  but  the  right  of  taxation  is  still  claimed.  — 
Bernard  is  recalled  and  created  Baronet  of  Nettleham. 
—  Adams  comments  sarcastically  on  the  promotion     .  252  —  °M    ir 
X  April  24.       Adams  attacks  Gage  and  Bernard,  for  their  misrepresen- 
tations of  Boston     .......    250,  251«^» 

*T  May  5.         *Adams  re-elected  Representative       ....  255  *^- 

X  May  31.  The  Legislature  meet.  —  Adams  re-elected  Clerk.  —  He 
writes  for  the  House  a  remonstrance  against  the  pres- 
ence of  the  troops 255,  256  f, 

June.  Discussions  between  the  House  and  the  Governor  con- 

cerning the  troops,  the  removal  of  the  Assembly  to 
Cambridge,  the  payment  of  the  Governor's  salary  in 

advance,  etc 256  -  258 

June  27.       The  Assembly  present  a  petition  to  the  King  for  Gov- 
ernor Bernard's  removal 258 

July  3.  A  resolution  of  the  House  denying  the  power  of  Parlia- 
ment over  the  Colonies  is  published  in  the  Boston 
Gazette,  and  the  Governor  in  consequence  detains  two 
regiments  which  were  starting  for  Halifax  .  .  .  259,  260 
July  7.  The  House  modifies  its  resolution  and  the  regiments  de- 
part          260 

July  15.        Adams  writes  the  report  of  a  committee  of  the  House  on 
the  maintenance  of  the  royal  troops  by  the  Province.  — 
V  The  Legislature  is  prorogued    .....   262,  26^ 
July  26.        A  meeting  of  merchants  protests  against  the  tax  on  tea, 

and  adopts  the  non-importation  agreement  of  August,   % 

1768         . 264,  3G&- 

Aug.  1.         Bernard  sails  for  England.  —  Popular  rejoicings.  — Ad- 
ams's opinion  of  him         ......    266,  267 

Aug.  14.       Celebration  of  the  Anniversary  of  the  Stamp  Act  riot        269  -  271 
Sept.  1.         Conference  of*  Adams  and  Otis  with  the  Commissioners 

of  the  Customs 274 


/ 
/ 


/ 


'^^w 


XV1U  CHRONOLOGY. 

Sept.  4.         Otis  is  assaulted  by  Robinson  in  consequence  of  an  at- 
tack on  the  Commissioners  in  the  Gazette        .         .      275  -  277 
Sept.  25.       Adams  defends  Otis  in  the  Gazette       .         .         .         .   276,  277 
Oct.  4.  A  cargo  of  tea  arrives.  —  A  town  meeting  records  the 

names  of  four  importers  as  "  infamous  "  and  confirms 
»  the  non-importation  agreement       ....      278-281    ""■"• 

^f     Oc\.  18. /     The  "Appeal  to  the  World,"  written  by  Adams,  adopt- 
ed by  the  town  and  sent  to  England  with  a  letter,  also 

written  by  Adams 282  -  00fV-i    _ 

Oct.  28.        An   informer  tarred  and  feathered.  —  The  mob  breaks 

into  the  Chronicle  office 287 

yNov.  16.  Adams  writes  to  Deberdt  on  the  danger  to  the  British 
power  in  America  to  be  apprehended  from  the  French 
and  Spanish    ........   288,  9ft<i 

1770.  \^ 

Jan.  Debates  in  Parliament  on  America.  —  Lord  North  be- 

comes Prime  Minister       ......    293,  294 

Jan.  4.  Hutchinson,  under  instructions  from  Hillsborough,  fur- 

ther prorogues  the  General  Court,  to  meet  at  Cambridge  294,  295 

Jan.  8.  Adams,  in  the  Gazette,  denies  the  validity  of  the  instruc- 

tions, and  rebukes  the  sons  of  Hutchinson  and  others 
who  had  recommenced  the  sale  of  tea  ...   295,  296  "■■—i 

Jan.  16.  A  meeting  of  merchants  compels  Hutchinson  to  give  up 
the  sale  of  tea.  —  Adams  skilfully  prevails  on  a  certain 
Scotchman  to  sign  the  non-importation  agreement        .  298  -  300 

Feb.  Many  ladies  sign  a  compact  not  to  drink  tea  until  the 

revenue  laws  are  repealed  ......   301,  302 

Feb.  22.  In  a  slight  disturbance  growing  out  of  the  importation  of 
tea,  Richardson,  an  informer,  mortally  wounds  Chris- 
topher Snyder,  who  is  buried  with  a  public  funeral  on 
the  26th 302-304 

March  2.       Affray  between  the  troops  and  the  men  of  Gray's  rope- 

Jwalk 308-310 

March  5.  ^The  Massacre  in  King  Street  .         ....      310-318 

March  6.  The  town  and  county  authorities  apply  to  Hutchinson 
unsuccessfully  for  the  removal  of  the  troops.  —  A  town 
meeting  send  a  committee,  headed  by  Adams,  to  Hutch- 
inson and  the  Council,  to  renew  the  demand.  —  They 
receive  an  evasive  answer.  —  Adams  reports  to  the  peo- 
ple, who  intrust  him  with  the  final  issue.  —  Memorable 
scene  in  the  Council  Chamber.  —  Adams  overawes 
Hutchinson,  and  the  troops  are  sent  to  the  Castle.  — 
"  Sanfr-Adams's    regiments."  —  A   volunteer    night-  4_ 

watch  is  established 319- 327  _. 


Ma 


CHRONOLOGY.  XIX 

March  5,  etc.  Debates  in  Parliament  on  American   affairs.  —  The 

duty  on  tea  retained      ......        332,  3 

March  8.      Public  funeral  of  the  victims  of  the  Massacre         .         .    327,  328 

March.  Adams  sends  an  account  of  the  affair  to  Governor  Pow- 

nall  in  behalf  of  the  Town        .         .         .         .         .  32; 

March  15.  The  Legislature  is  convened  at  Cambridge.  —  They  pro- 
test unsuccessfully  against  their  removal  from  Boston  334 

April  23.      The  House  remonstrates  with  the  Lieutenant-Governor 

concerning  various  grievances  ....  336 

April  26.      Hutchinson  dissolves  the  Assembly,  threatening  to  lay 

their  remonstrance  before  the  King         .         .         .  337 

May  8.  Adams  re-elected  Kepresentative  .....  338 

May  11,  etc.  He  persuades  Hancock  not  to  withdraw  from  the  Boston 

delegation        . 343,  344 

May  15.         The  Boston  members  receive  instructions  from  Josiah 

Quincy 338,  339 

May  30.  The  Legislature  meet  at  Cambridge.  —  Adams  elected 
Clerk.  —  Controversy  between  the  House  and  Hutchin- 
son on  their  removal  to  Cambridge.  —  The  Court  pro- 
rogued June  25 344,  345- 

Aug.  3.         The  Court,  having  met  July  25,  adopt  Adams's  reply  to 

Hutchinson's  opening  address  in  defence  of  the  removal  347  -  351 

Sept.  10.       Castle  William  taken  from  the  keeping  of  the  Provincial 

authorities        .         .         .     . 355-358 

Sept.,  Oct.  The  Legislature  meets  Sept.  25.  —  Controversy  with 
Hutchinson  on  the  surrender  of  the  Castle.  —  Adams 
writes  replies  for  the  House  and  articles  in  the  Gazette 
on  the  subject ........  358  -  362 

Oct.,  Nov.  Trial  of  the  soldiers.  —  Adams  causes  John  Adams  and 
Quincy  to  be  retained  as  their  counsel,  and  Paine  to 
conduct  the  prosecution  .....      328—331 

ct,  Nov.    The  opposition  to  the  measures  of  Parliament  slackens  .  365-369 
ov.  Adams  writes  the  instructions  to  Franklin  .         .      370  -  3^^, 

bv.  7.  The  first  Committee  of  Correspondence  appointed  .  372-3 

Nov.  16,  20.  The  House  present  to  Hutchinson  an  address  written 
by  Adams,  on  the  surrender  of  the  Castle,  and  another 
on  the  militia.  —  The  General  Court  is  prorogued        .  375 

Dec.  27.        Adams  writes  to  John  Wilkes  ....       377,  378 

1770,  1771. 
u- /Dec,  Jan.    Controversy  between  "  Vindex"  (Adams)  and  "Philan- 

tbrop" 330-332 

1771. 
March.         Hutchinson  appointed  Governor,  his  salary  to  be  paid  by 

the  Crown 380 


XX  CHRONOLOGY. 

March  5.       The  first  Anniversary  of  the  Boston  Massacre.  —  Lovell 
delivers  the  oration.  —  Adams  on  the  committee  of  ar- 
rangements for  the  next  year     .....  381 
March  or  April.  Adams  writes  the  reply  of  the  Town  to  the  letter  of 

Dr.  Lucas  regarding  the  Massacre  .  .  .  .  383 
April  24.  Adams  writes  the  reply  of  the  House  (which  met  on  the 
3d)  to  two  speeches  of  the  Governor  relating  to  the 
military  establishment,  to  his  appointment,  etc.  —  The 
Governor  objects  to  the  phrase  "  His  Majesty's  Com- 
mons," applied  to  the  House 384  -  387 

April  25.       Adams  makes  inquiries  for  the  House  in  regard  to  the 

payment  of  the  Governor's  salary  by  the  Crown      .        387,  388 

April  26.      The  Assembly  is  dissolved 388 

Apr. -June.  The  opposition  to  government  subsides.  —  John  Adams 
withdraws  from  public  life.  —  Adams  re-elected  "Repre- 
sentative, and,  on  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature  (May 
29),  again  chosen  Clerk.  —  Otis  is  jealous  of  Adams, 
and  the  Governor  tampers  with  Hancock.  —  They  carry 
the  House  in  opposition  to  Adams.  — Adams  prepares 
a  report  on  the  Provincial  military,  and  a  protest 
against  holding  the  session  at  Cambridge.  —  With 
some  difficulty  he  secures  the  passage  of  the  latter  in 
the  House.  —  Hancock  and  his  party  for  a  while  si- 
lenced      389-406 

Adams  appointed  one  of  a  Committee  of  Correspondence  406«* 

Adams  drafts  a  letter  of  instructions  to  Franklin    .         .  406  -  41  Ql« 
Hutchinson   announces   arbitrary  instructions  received 

from  the  King 412 

Adams  replies  for  the  Assembly.  —  The  Court  prorogued  412,  413 
Twelve  war  vessels  anchor  in  the  harbor       .         .         .  416 

Adams  writes  much  in  the  Gazette.  —  He  counsels  union 
of  the  Colonies  and  an  Assembly  of  deputies       .         .  at  «  _  4.9* 

1771,  1772. 

ct.-Jan.  Adams  denies  the  supreme  authority  of  Parliament 
over  the  Colonies. — He  maintains  an  incessant  contest 
with  the  crown  writers.  —  His  celebrity  as  a  political 
essayist   ....         7~~"    "^*"~~-^    ••  •  425-458*«» 

Oct.— Jan.    Political  divisions  among  the  patriots        .         .        437-439,458 

1772. 

March  5.       Joseph  Warren  delivers  the  oration  in  commemoration 

of  the  Massacre 459,  460 

April  8,  etc.  Meeting  of  the  Legislature.  —  Adams  carries  the  House 
against  Hancock  and  his  party.  —  Bowdoin  secures  for 
Adams  the  co-operation  of  the  Council       .         .         .  465  -467 


June  27. 

June  29. 

July  4. 

July  5. 

Aug.  12. 

Sept.,  Oct. 

CHRONOLOGY.  XXI 

April  10.  Adams  writes  the  reply  to  the  Governor's  message  re- 
specting the  removal  of  the  General  Court  to  Cam- 
bridge      467,  468 

**>    April  20  -  25.  Adams  is  ill.  —  The  Legislature  dissolved  on  the  25th  468 
«V"May  6.          Adams  re-elected  Representative  against  considerable  op- 
position             471,  472 

May  27.        The  Legislature  meets.  —  Hancock  rejoins  the  patriot 

party 473-475 

May  29.  Adams  again  remonstrates  against  keeping  the  Assem- 
bly at  Cambridge,  and  it  is  finally  adjourned  to  Bos- 
ton, June  13    477-479 

June  ?  Hancock  causes  Copley  to  paint  the  portrait  of  Adams 

and  himself 475-477 

July.  Controversy  with  the  Governor  on  the  payment  of  his 

salary  by  the  Crown         .....         .  479-481  ■  ■  ■ 

July  14.  The  House  reply  by  the  hand  of  Adams  to  the  Govern- 
or's demand  that  the  Province  House  should  be  re- 
paired. —  The  Governor  prorogues  the  General  Court 
with  a  fling  at  Adams  .  .....  481  -483 

Oct.  5.  Adams  writes  against  the  payment  of  the  salaries  df  Pro- 

vincial officers  by  the  Crown     .         .         .         .         .  485  -  488—— 

Oct.  He  labors  for  a  general  league  of  the  Massachusetts       x. 

towns.  —  Cushing,  Hancock,  and  others  oppose  the  JL 

measure  in  vain 488  -  495"—-" 

Oct.  28.        A  preliminary  town  meeting  is  held  to  inaugurate  the 

Confederation 491-493v^_ 

Oct.  30.  At  the  adjourned  town  meeting  the  Governor  is  peti- 
tioned for  a  session  of  the  Legislature  .         .         .  494,  495 

Nov.  2.  The  Governor  signifies  to  the  meeting  his  refusal  of  the 

petition.  —  On  the  motion  of  Adams  a  Committee  of 
Correspondence  is  appointed  ....  495  -  498——- 

Nov.  20.  Adams  drafts  for  the  Committee  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colo- 
nists " ;  Joseph  Warren,  the  "  Violations  of  Rights  " ; 
and  Church,  the  "Letter  of  Correspondence  to  the 
Towns" 500-51 


\/> 


LIFE 


OP 


SAMUEL   ADAMS 


CHAPTER   I. 

The  Ancestors  of  Samuel  Adams.  —  Political  Career  and  Social  Position  of 
his  Father.  —  The  Family  Homestead.  —  Boyhood  and  College  Life. — 
The  Land  Bank  Scheme.  — Is  graduated  at  Harvard  College.  — Asserts  the 
Right  of  Resistance  to  Tyranny. — Attempts  a  Mercantile  Life.  —  The 
Public  Advertiser.  —  His  Early  Essays  in  that  Paper  in  Favor  of  Colo- 
nial Rights.  —  Death  of  the  elder  Adams.  —  Marriage  of  young  Adams. 

—  Death  of  his  Wife.  —  His  Children.  —  Efforts  to  deprive  him  of  his 
Estate.  —  Asserts  Colonial  Supremacy  over  an  Act  of  Parliament.  —  His 
Fame  as  a  Political  Writer  during  Shirley's  and  PownalTs  Administrations. 

—  His  Influence  in  Boston.  —  Becomes  a  Tax-Collector. 


Before  tracing  the  youth  and  early  manhood  of  Samuel 
Adams,  it  will  be  proper  to  glance  at  the  character  and  cir- 
cumstances of  his  father,  who  bore  the  same  name,  and 
it  may  be  supposed  nad  the  principal  share  in  developing 
his  character.  The  few  facts  which  have  been  collected 
concerning  him  are  gathered  from  "contemporary  writings 
and  family  tradition,  and  rather  cause  regret  that  they  are 
so  meagre,  than  afford  a  satisfactory  sketch  of  his  life. 

Samuel  Adams  the  elder,  the  second  son  of  Captain  John 
Adams*  of  Braintree,  was  born  in  Boston  on  the  6th  of 
May,  1689,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  was  married  to 

*  Captain  John  Adams  was  a  descendant  from  the  first  of  his  name  who 
settled  in  Massachusetts,  who  was  the  common  ancestor  of  the  Adamses  of 
Revolutionary  celebrity ;  Samuel  Adams  the  younger  and  John  Adams,  the. 
second  President  of  the  United  States,  having  been  second-cousins. 

VOL.    I.  1 


2  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1712. 

Miss  Mary  Fifield,  only  daughter  of  Richard  Fifield  of  Bos- 
ton. Mr.  Adams  was  possessed  of  an  ample  fortune  for 
those  days,  the  fruits  of  his  scrupulous  attention  to  business ; 
for,  though  he  made  himself  prominent  in  political  affairs, 
he  never  lost  sight  of  the  value  of  property  as  a  means  of 
securing  the  comfort  of  his  family,  and  their  position  in 
society. 

His  residence  was  in  Purchase  Street,  Boston,  where  in 
1712,  the  year  before  his  marriage,  he  had  bought  a  piece 
of  land  running  on  the  northwest  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  feet  along  Purchase  Street,  and  extending  to  low-water 
mark.  On  the  northeast,  it  was  bounded  by  Dawes's  Wharf 
(since  Prentice's  estate)  and  Bull's  Wharf,  there  being  sixty- 
two  fee.t  between  Adams's  estate  and  the  north  side  of  Sum- 
mer Street.  The  house  fronted  upon  and  commanded  a 
fine  view  of  the  harbor.  But  few  buildings  had  then  been 
erected  in  its  neighborhood,  so  that  it  stood  conspicuous  in 
that  vicinity.  On  the  roof  was  an  observatory,  and  a  railing 
with  steps  leading  up  from  the  outside.  About  the  year 
1730  it  was  somewhat  improved,  and  as  late  as  1800  the 
grounds  were  still  adorned  with  trees  and  shrubbery.  He 
also  owned  other  property  in  that  vicinity,  and  was  the 
proprietor  at  a  subsequent  date  of  several  dwelling-houses. 
This  property  remained  vested  in  him  until  1734,  as  shown 
by  the  records  of  some  of  the  principal  estates.  From  that 
date,  no  facts  appear  concerning  it  until  early  in  the  next 
century,  after  it  had  become  the  property  of  his  son.  From 
the  little  known  of  Deacon,  or  Captain  Adams,  as  he  was 
often  called,  he  appears  to  have  merited  to  the  fullest  extent 
the  encomiums  passed  upon  him  by  his  illustrious  son,  who 
in  after  years  said,  that  "  he  was  a  wise  man  and  a  good 
man."  His  name  appears  in  1739  on  the  town  record,  as  one 
of  the  committee  appointed  to  draft  instructions  to  the 
Representatives  in  the  Assembly. 

The  ability  afterwards  manifested  by  his  son  in  managing 
popular  assemblies,  and  in  so  ordering  elections  as  to  insure 


1715.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  3 

the  advancement  of  those  favorable  to  the  cause  of  liberty, 
may  have  had  its  origin  in  the  examples  thus  presented  in 
early  life.  Gordon  states  that  more  than  fifty  years  before 
the  year  1774  (1724  or  earlier),  Samuel  Adams  senior,  "  and 
about  twenty  others,  one  or  two  from  the  north  end  of  the 
town,  where  all  ship  business  was  carried  on,  used  to  meet, 
make  a  caucus,  and  lay  their  plans  for  introducing  certain 
persons  into  places  of  trust  and  power."  It  was  probably 
from  the  name  of  this  political  club,  composed  principally 
of  ship-building  mechanics,  that  the  word  "  caucus "  was 
derived,  as  a  corruption  of  "  Calker's  Club."  The  same 
writer  confesses  himself  unable  to  trace  the  term  beyond 
their  circle  and  times. 

Mr.  Adams's  house  must  have  been  the  resort  of  many  of 
the  leading  politicians  of  the  day,  as  he  was  of  a  sociable 
disposition  and  able  to  entertain  his  friends  with  liberal  hos- 
pitality. He  was  for  some  years  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  and 
a  Selectman,  and  was  a  Eepresentative  of  his  native  town  in 
the  Massachusetts  House  of  Assembly.  The  younger  Elisha 
Cooke,  long  a  leader  of  the  popular  party,  was  his  friend, 
and  joined  with  him  in  his  opposition  to  Governor  Shute's 
measures,  which  were  considered  subversive  of  the  public 
liberties. 

The  mother  of  Samuel  Adams  was  a  woman  of  severe 
religious  principles,  and  she  early  imbued  her  children  with 
reverence  for  the  Christian  virtues  which  she  practised.  To 
the  scrupulous  attention  of  his  parents  to  devotional  subjects 
must  have  been  greatly  due  the  religious  turn  of  mind  which 
was  a  prevailing  trait  throughout  the  life  of  the  son.  His 
father  had  been  for  some  years  a  deacon  of  the  Old  South 
Church.  With  thirteen  other  inhabitants  at  the  southerly 
end  of  the  town,  he  had  petitioned  the  authorities  in  1715  for 
leave  to  erect  a  meeting-house  on  the  site  of  the  present  Sum- 
mer Street  Church.  The  building  was  completed  in  1717, 
dedicated  in  January  of  that  year,  and  commonly  known  as 
the  "New*  South."     Soon  after,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Checkley, 


2  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1712. 

Miss  Mary  Fifield,  only  daughter  of  Richard  Fifield  of  Bos- 
ton. Mr.  Adams  was  possessed  of  an  ample  fortune  for 
those  days,  the  fruits  of  his  scrupulous  attention  to  business  ; 
for,  though  he  made  himself  prominent  in  political  affairs, 
he  never  lost  sight  of  the  value  of  property  as  a  means  of 
securing  the  comfort  of  his  family,  and  their  position  in 
society. 

His  residence  was  in  Purchase  Street,  Boston,  where  in 
1712,  the  year  before  his  marriage,  he  had  bought  a  piece 
of  land  running  on  the  northwest  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  feet  along  Purchase  Street,  and  extending  to  low-water 
mark.  On  the  northeast,  it  was  bounded  by  Dawes's  Wharf 
(since  Prentice's  estate)  and  Bull's  Wharf,  there  being  sixty- 
two  feet  between  Adams's  estate  and  the  north  side  of  Sum- 
mer Street.  The  house  fronted  upon  and  commanded  a 
fine  view  of  the  harbor.  But  few  buildings  had  then  been 
erected  in  its  neighborhood,  so  that  it  stood  conspicuous  in 
that  vicinity.  On  the  roof  was  an  observatory,  and  a  railing 
with  steps  leading  up  from  the  outside.  About  the  year 
1730  it  was  somewhat  improved,  and  as  late  as  1800  the 
grounds  were  still  adorned  with  trees  and  shrubbery.  He 
also  owned  other  property  in  that  vicinity,  and  was  the 
proprietor  at  a  subsequent  date  of  several  dwelling-houses. 
This  property  remained  vested  in  him  until  1734,  as  shown 
by  the  records  of  some  of  the  principal  estates.  From  that 
date,  no  facts  appear  concerning  it  until  early  in  the  next 
century,  after  it  had  become  the  property  of  his  son.  From 
the  little  known  of  Deacon,  or  Captain  Adams,  as  he  was 
often  called,  he  appears  to  have  meriteo}  to  the  fullest  extent 
the  encomiums  passed  upon  him  by  his  illustrious  son,  who 
in  after  years  said,  that  "  he  was  a  wise  man  and  a  good 
man."  His  name  appears  in  1739  on  the  town  record,  as  one 
of  the  committee  appointed  to  draft  instructions  to  the 
Representatives  in  the  Assembly. 

The  ability  afterwards  manifested  by  his  son  in  managing 
popular  assemblies,  and  in  so  ordering  elections  as  to  insure 


1715.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  3 

the  advancement  of  those  favorable  to  the  cause  of  liberty, 
may  have  had  its  origin  in  the  examples  thus  presented  in 
early  life.  Gordon  states  that  more  than  fifty  years  before 
the  year  1774  (1724  or  earlier),  Samuel  Adams  senior,  "  and 
about  twenty  others,  one  or  two  from  the  north  end  of  the 
town,  where  all  ship  business  was  carried  on,  used  to  meet, 
make  a  caucus,  and  lay  their  plans  for  introducing  certain 
persons  into  places  of  trust  and  power."  It  was  probably 
from  the  name  of  this  political  club,  composed  principally 
of  ship-building  mechanics,  that  the  word  "  caucus "  was 
derived,  as  a  corruption  of  "  Calker's  Club."  The  same 
writer  confesses  himself  unable  to  trace  the  term  beyond 
their  circle  and  times. 

Mr.  Adams's  house  must  have  been  the  resort  of  many  of 
the  leading  politicians  of  the  day,  as  he  was  of  a  sociable 
disposition  and  able  to  entertain  his  friends  with  liberal  hos- 
pitality. He  was  for  some  years  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  and 
a  Selectman,  and  was  a  Kepresentative  of  his  native  town  in 
the  Massachusetts  House  of  Assembly.  The  younger  Elisha 
Cooke,  long  a  leader  of  the  popular  party,  was  his  friend, 
and  joined  with  him  in  his  opposition  to  Governor  Shute's 
measures,  which  were  considered  subversive  of  the  public 
liberties. 

The  mother  of  Samuel  Adams  was  a  woman  of  severe 
religious  principles,  and  she  early  imbued  her  children  with 
reverence  for  the  Christian  virtues  which  she  practised.  To 
the  scrupulous  attention  of  his  parents  to  devotional  subjects 
must  have  been  greatly  due  the  religious  turn  of  mind  which 
was  a  prevailing  trait  throughout  the  life  of  the  son.  His 
father  had  been  for  some  years  a  deacon  of  the  Old  South 
Church.  With  thirteen  other  inhabitants  at  the  southerly 
end  of  the  town,  he  had  petitioned  the  authorities  in  1715  for 
leave  to  erect  a  meeting-house  on  the  site  of  the  present  Sum- 
mer Street  Church.  The  building  was  completed  in  1717, 
dedicated  in  January  of  that  year,  and  commonly  known  as 
the  "NeW  South."     Soon  after,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Checkley, 


4  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1722. 

a  relative  of  Mr.  Adams,  and  afterwards  father-in-law  of 
Samuel  Adams,  was  ordained  minister.  It  was  here  that 
the  subject  of  these  memoirs  was  baptized,  on  Sunday,  the 
day  of  his  birth,  September  16th  (0.  S.),  1722. 

Of  the  family  of  Captain  Adams,  consisting  of  twelve, 
only  three  survived  him,  —  Mary,  Samuel,  and  Joseph.  Of 
Joseph  there  are  no  accounts  extant,  other  than  that  he  is 
said  to  have  been  Clerk  of  the  Market  in  Boston  at  the  time 
of  his  father's  death.  Samuel  Adams  frequently  recurred 
to  the  gentle  influence  of  his  sister,  who  was  five  years 
his  elder.  She  was  of  a  winning  and  amiable  disposition, 
and,  like  himself,  a  strict  observer  of  the  requirements  of 
religion.  A  memorandum-book  kept  partly  in  1735-36, 
and  filled  with  texts  of  sermons  in  her  neat  handwriting,  is 
still  preserved,  and  indicates  the  religious  bent  of  her  mind. 
This  was  during  the  revival  which  under  the  ministry  of  the 
learned  and  devout  Jonathan  Edwards  extended  through 
Massachusetts,  and  afterwards  to  some  of  the  other  Colonies. 
In  the  journal  occur  the  names  of  some  twenty  clergymen 
whose  discourses  she  had  attended,  —  among  them  Doctors 
Lowell,  Cooper,  Checkley,  Byles,  Chauncy,  Edwards,  Thach- 
er,  Prince,  and  Mather.  There  are  also  letters  written  to 
some  friend  during  the  revival  attending  Whitefield's  visit 
to  Boston,  in  which  she  freely  expresses  her  opinions  on 
religious  subjects.  These  writings  are  the  fervent  outpour- 
ings of  a  heart  tinctured  with,  but  not  chilled  by,  the  stern 
doctrines  then  prevailing  in  New  England.  She  was  mar- 
ried to  James  Allen  of  Boston.  Her  brother  never  forgot 
her  amiable  disposition,  and,  when  speaking  of  her  in  after 
years,  used  to  remark,  "  That  is  a  happy  young  man  who 
has  had  an  elder  sister  upon  whom  he  could  rely  for  advice 
and  counsel  in  youth." 

In  boyhood  Samuel  Adams  exhibited  indications  of  a 
strong  and  inquiring  mind.  Naturally  observant  and  of  a 
quick  intelligence,  he  saw  and  comprehended  the  disputes 
which  arose  between  Governor  Burnet  and  the  people,  and, 


1736.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  5 

after  the  death  of  the  former,  were  continued  under  the  ad- 
ministration of  Governor  Belcher.  The  refusal  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  to  deprive  themselves  of  their  charter 
rights  by  the  settlement  of  a  fixed  salary  upon  the  Governor, 
and  the  spirited  controversies  arising  from  it,  all  occurred 
during  his  youth,  and  were  doubtless  the  subject  of  discus- 
sion at  his  father's  house.  It  is  not  difficult  to  picture 
the  youth,  with  his  earnest  face,  listening  intently  to  conver- 
sations, which,  when  his  own  manhood  should  arrive,  and 
these  preliminary  actors  should  have  passed  from  the  stage, 
were  to  occupy  his  thoughts  and  rule  his  conduct.  At  an 
an  early  age  he  was  placed  under  the  guidance  of  the  cele- 
brated Mr.  Lovell  the  elder,  principal  of  the  Grammar 
School  of  Boston,  where  he  evinced  a  commendable  degree 
of  readiness  and  attention  to  his  studies.  One  of  his  school- 
books  is  yet  in  existence,  and  contains  in  his  handwriting 
some  boyish  sentiments  on  the  importance  of  learning  in  com- 
parison with  riches,  —  a  principle  which  he  emphatically  ex- 
emplified in  after  life.  His  manners,  which  had  been  carefully 
cultivated  by  his  father,  who  intended  him  for  a  professional 
life,  had  much  of  the  persuasive  earnestness  which  enabled 
him  in  manhood  to  lead  others  in  time  of  public  agitation. 
His  form  was  of  the  medium  height,  and  well  developed. 
Though  he  often  made  equestrian  journeys  into  the  coun- 
try, he  is  not  known  to  have  ever  quitted  Massachusetts 
until  he  visited  Philadelphia  as  one  of  the  delegates  to  the 
Continental  Congress. 

His  collegiate  course,  which  extended  through  four  years, 
was  marked  by  close  application  to  his  studies.  In  1736,  at 
the  age  of  fourteen,  he  entered  Harvard,  and  during  his 
student  life  subjected  himself  but  once  to  reproof,  which 
was  for  oversleeping  himself  and  missing  an  attendance  at 
morning  prayers.  At  that  time,  position  in  the  classes  was 
determined  by  the  wealth  and  standing  of  families.  In  a 
class  of  twenty-two,  young  Adams  stood  fifth.  Thirty  years 
afterwards,  when  democratic  principles  had  become  general, 


6  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1740. 

such  family  distinctions  were  disregarded,  and  the  names  of 
students  were  arranged  in  alphabetical  order.  The  boy 
made  considerable  proficiency  in  classical  learning,  logic, 
and  natural  philosophy ;  but  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors 
were  his  favorites ;  he  studied  their  works  assiduously,  and 
being  thus  early  imbued  with  a  love  of  the  ancient  classical 
writers,  never  lost  his  fondness  for  quoting  them.  His  po- 
litical writings  and  speeches  during,  the  Revolution  contain 
frequent  allusions  to  them ;  and  it  was  sometimes  said  of 
him,  that  he  could  never  write  or  speak  of  American  affairs 
without  illustrating  his  theme  by  comparisons  with  Greece 
and  Rome.  He  also  attentively  read  at  college  the  works  of 
English  writers  on  government. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen,  in  1740,  he  was  graduated  and  re- 
ceived his  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  Of  the  incidents  of 
his  college  life  there  are  no  accounts  other  than  the  general- 
ities which  family  traditions  have  handed  down.  The  scanty 
records  made  at  that  time  in  the  books  of  the  University 
reveal  but  little. 

The  investigation  of  theology  had  much  occupied  his 
thoughts,  and  had  doubtless  been  quickened  by  the  advent 
of  Whitefield,  who  visited  Boston  at  this  time.  But  this 
gradually  gave  place  to  an  irresistible  love  of  political  sub- 
jects, then  beginning  to  engross  popular  attention.  Though, 
in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  a  pious  father,  he  had 
endeavored  to  fix  his  mind  upon  the  ministry,  for  which 
he  had  been  designed,  his  inclinations  wandered  to  that 
more  exciting  arena  in  which  he  hoped  to  find  the  spir- 
ited contests  better  suited  to  his  ardent  and  active  temper- 
ament. In  a  debate  in  college,  in  which  several  of  his 
classmates  took  part,  he  had  chosen  for  the  subject  "Lib- 
erty " ;  and  then  he  probably  expressed  his  opinions  in 
nearly  the  strain  of  his  publications  on  that  subject  several 
years  later. 

In  the  year  that  he  was  graduated  his  father  began  to 
experience  reverses  of  fortune.     The  great  exertions  made 


1740.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  7 

by  the  Province  in  support  of  the  national  wars  and  those 
for  its  own  defence  had  sadly  embarrassed  the  public  finances. 
The  Province  was  temporarily  impoverished,  and,  to  add 
to  the  general  distress,  the  bills  of  credit,  founded  on  the 
uncollected  public  taxes,  and  since  1690  used  as  a  partial 
substitute  for  coin,  were  to  be  stopped  in  consequence  of 
orders  received  by  Governor  Belcher  from  the  King  to  con- 
sent to  the  issue  of  no  bills  to  remain  current  beyond  the 
year  1741.  Those  outstanding  were  ordered  to  be  paid  off. 
These  orders  were  procured  by  the  remonstrances  of  English 
merchants  engaged  in  the  American  trade,  who  had  com- 
plained to  Parliament  of  the  great  fluctuation  and  deprecia- 
tion of  prices  consequent  upon  the  decrease  of  coin  in  the 
Colony,  and  the  over-issue  of  bills  of  credit ;  and  was  in  con- 
tinuation of  the  odious  policy  of  the  act  of  1732,  restricting 
the  industry  of  the  Colonies,  to  keep  them  "  properly  depen- 
dent upon  the  parent  country, "  and  prohibiting  intercolonial 
and  foreign  trade  in  specified  articles  of  Colonial  manufac- 
ture ;  a  policy  which  was  followed  up,  in  1750,  by  prohibiting 
"  the  erection  or  continuance  of  any  mill  or  other  engine  for 
slitting  or  rolling  iron,  or  any  plating  forge  to  work  with  a 
tilt-hammer,  or  any  furnace  for  making  steel  in  the  Colonies, 
under  the  penalty  of  two  hundred  pounds."  The  Stamp  Act 
of  1765  was  by  no  means  the  initiatory  act  of  aggression 
by  the  home  government.  For  more  than  thirty  years 
before  that  eventful,  period,  it  had  been  weaving  the  net- 
work of  oppressive  measures  to  cramp  the  growing  industry 
of  the  Colonies,  of  which  the  English  manufacturers  had  long 
shown  themselves  jealous. 

This  arbitrary  interference  with  the  Colonial  currency 
was  regarded  as  oppressive,  and  its  evil  results  were  not 
long  in  appearing.  The  paper  currency,  which  the  cus- 
tom of  half  a  century  had  rendered  indispensable  in  every 
branch  of  business,  being  thus  absorbed,  a  monetary  panic 
similar  to  those  following  the  bank  contractions  of  the 
present  day  ensued.     Urged  by  the  distresses  which  fol- 


8  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1741. 

lowed  hard  upon  these  measures,  a  powerful  party  was 
formed,  who  used  every  effort  to  induce  the  Governor  to 
consent  to  new  issues,  or  to  extend  the  period  of  the  old 
beyond  the  time  to  which  they  had  been  limited.  The 
Governor  refused,  and  thus  incurred  the  enmity  of  the 
people  and  the  majority  of  the  Legislature,  through  whose 
efforts  he  was,  in  the  following  year,  removed  from  office. 
Mr.  Adams  senior,  as  a  leading  tradesman  and  active  poli- 
tician, made  his  influence  felt  in  procuring  this  result. 
The  withdrawal  of  the  bills  of  credit  had  the  opposite  effect 
from  what  had  been  anticipated  in  England.  Financial 
difficulties  increased,  public  credit  declined,  and  the  cur- 
rency was  fast  depreciating. 

Among  the  expedients  adopted  to  remedy  these  evils 
were  the  "  Land  Bank  Scheme,"  and  the  "  Silver  Scheme." 
The  latter  was  devised  by  a  number  of  merchants,  who 
organized  an  association,  and  issued  bills  to  the  amount  of 
one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  pounds,  which  were  redeem- 
able in  ten  years  at  a  specified  rate.  The  "Land  Bank 
Scheme,"  which  was  subsequently  organized,  was  a  more 
popular  and  wide-extended  institution,  and  continued  to 
exercise  its  functions  for  about  sixteen  months.  It  was 
unlimited  in  the  number  of  its  members,  and  at  last  grew 
into  an  association  of  about  eight  hundred,  consisting  for 
the  most  part  of  mechanics  and  farmers.  Its  object  was 
joint  private  emolument,  as  well  as  public  benefit.  The 
capital  stock  consisted  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds,  each  person  signing  opposite  to  his  name  the 
amount  in  which  he  wished  to  become  interested,  which 
was  secured  to  the  company  by  a  mortgage  on  his  estate, 
or  by  bonds  with  two  sufficient  sureties.  The  largest 
amount  of  a  bond  was  one  hundred  pounds.  Bills  to  the 
amount  of  the  capital  were  issued  to  supply  the  place  of  the 
public  bills  which  had  been  withdrawn.  Subscriptions 
might  be  received  in  the  manufactures  or  produce  of  the 
Province,  at  such  prices  as  the  board  of  directors  should 


1741.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  9 

decide  upon,  or  at  the  current  market  value.  An  annual 
interest  of  three  per  cent  on  the  amount  taken  by  the  sub- 
scribers was  to  be  paid  by  them,  which,  together  with  five 
per  cent  of  the  original  subscription,  was  to  go  into  the 
general  bank  fund. 

Such  are  the  outlines  of  the  "  Land  Bank  Scheme,"  or 
"Manufactory  Company"  as  it  was  oftener  called.  The 
causes  which  led  to  its  organization  are  particularly  specified, 
as  subsequently  its  arbitrary  dissolution  by  Parliament  first 
brought  young  Adams  into  political  notice.  His  father  was 
among  the  members,  and  was  a  director.  George  Leonard, 
and  Robert  Auchmuty,  formerly  Judge  of  Vice-Admiralty, 
were  also  of  the  number.  Memorials  of  their  transactions, 
found  in  the  public  records,  show  that  the  bank  was  in  suc- 
cessful operation  in  October  and  November,  1741,*'  when 
Samuel  Adams,  Esq.,  and  others  of  the  directors,  appear  as 
the  grantors  of  a  certain  parcel  of  land,  for  the  sum  of  for- 
ty pounds,  to  Eliphalet  Pond,  yeoman ;  and  subsequently, 
Messrs.  Robert  Auchmuty,  Samuel  Adams,  and  others  ac- 
knowledge the  receipt  of  twenty  pounds  "in  bills  called 
Manufactory  Bills,"  from  one  Kingsman,  which  releases  him 
from  the  mortgage  to  that  amount  on  his  estate,  and  the  in- 
terest, two  pounds  nine  shillings  and  threepence,  paid. 
These  and  other  records  of  their  business  show  the  nature 
of  the  company's  operations.  They  issued  their  notes  or 
bills  as  money,  receiving  in  turn  mortgages  on  real  estate  in 
all  parts  of  the  Province,  which  were  redeemable  in  the 
bills  of  the  association. 

Opposition  to  this,  as  well  as  to  other  currency  schemes, 
had  been  violent  from  their  commencement.  It  had  espe- 
cially proceeded  from  the  government  officers;  and  the 
Governor,  and  Mr.  Hutchinson,  afterwards  Governor,  were 
particularly  inimical  to  it,  as  much,  as  it  has  been  alleged, 
from  political  considerations  as  from  any  honest  convic- 
tion of  its  impolicy.     Party  lines  between  Colonial  rights 

*  Eegistry  of  Deeds,  Boston,  1741,  Lib.  62,  p.  50. 


10  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1743. 

and  Parliamentary  aggression  had  already  been  drawn ;  and 
Mr.  Adams  senior  being  a  leader  of  the  popular  side,  he 
was  regarded  with  particular  disfavor.  The  efforts  against 
the  bank  were  finally  successful,  and  the  company  was  dis- 
solved by  an  act  declaring  that  "  the  act  of  King  George, 
chap.  18,  did  and  shall  extend  to  the  Colonies  and  planta- 
tions in  America.' '  It  prohibited  the  formation  of  incor- 
porated joint-stock  companies  with  more  than  six  persons. 
The  whole  financial  system  of  the  association  was  thus 
brought  summarily  to  a  close,  and  each  of  the  directors 
became  individually  responsible  for  the  liabilities  of  the 
whole.  Large  inroads  were  consequently  made  upon  the 
property  of  Mr.  Adams,  who  was  probably  the  principal 
shareholder,  and  perhaps  the  wealthiest  man  in  the  com- 
pany ;  and  he  seems  to  have  been  especially  selected  by  the 
crown  officers  as  the  object  of  their  rancor. 
/  During  the  agitation  caused  by  these  events,  in  1743, 
^JV"  Samuel  Adams,  then  twenty-one  years  of  age,  took  his 
Master's  degree  at  Cambridge.  He  selected  a  subject 
for  discussion  curiously  significant  of  the  thoughts  which 
had  now  taken  possession  of  his  mind;  and  it  indicates 
that  even  thus  early  he  had  seriously  contemplated  forcible 
opposition  at  some  future  time  to  the  power  of  the  British 
Parliament,  unjustly  exercised  over  the  Colonies.  His 
thesis  was :  "  Whether  it  be  lawful  to  resist  the  Supreme 
Magistrate,  if  the  Commonwealth  cannot  be  otherwise  pre- 
served." *  HeJba^lesjly_jaaintained  the  affirmative,  though 
it  pointed  to  a  course  of  policy,  which,  as  was  justly  re- 
marked by  one  who  personally  knew  him,  awas  scarcely 
contemplated  in  that  day,  unless  in  the  retirement  of  a 
closet." 

At  Commencement  it  is  customary  for  the  Governor 
and  Council  to  be  present,  imparting  greater  dignity  to  the 
ceremonies.      It  would  prove  an  interesting  addition  to  the 

*  "-An  supremo  Magistratui  resistere  liceat,  si  aliter  servari  Kespublica  ne- 
quit  ?     Affirraat  respondens  Samuel  Adams." 


1743.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  11 

scanty  memoirs  which  can  be  gathered  of  the  youth  of 
Samuel  Adams  to  know  the  sentiments  with  which  this 
bold  denial  of  British  power  was  received  by  the  assem- 
bled dignitaries  of  the  land ;  what  conversations  grew  out 
of  such  an  unprecedented  act  of  incipient  "  treason"  ;  what 
was  thought  of  it  by  his  father  and  such  of  his  friends  as 
were  present.  The  occasion  must  have  brought  together 
a  large  audience,  hundreds  of  whom  knew  and  were  in- 
terested in  the  success  of  the  young  speaker;  and  those 
who  ventured  to  predict  the  future  career  of  one  who 
hazarded  such  novel  views  in  the  presence  of  the  royal 
executive  and  the  crown  officers  must  have  marked  out  for 
him  an  adventurous  life.  The  manuscripts  of  the  Com- 
mencement theses  were  not  then  preserved  at  Harvard 
College,  and  of  this  performance  there  remains  but  the  bare 
title.  Of  the  arguments,  we  can  only  judge  from  the  tone 
of  his  political  writings  in  the  public  press  a  few  years 
later. 

The  right  of  resistance  to  oppression  was  on  this  occa- 
sion first  publicly  asserted  by  one  of  the  Revolutionary  gal- 
axy of  illustrious  men ;  thirty-three  years  before  the  Dec- 
laration, of  Independence ;  twenty-two  before  the  Stamp 
Act ;  in  the  reign  of  George  II. ;  while  Robert  Walpole 
was  Prime  Minister;  when  Washington,  Patrick  Henry, 
John  Adams,  Warren,  and  Hancock  were  children,  and 
Jefferson,  Gerry,  and  Quincy  yet  unborn ;  at  a  time  when 
the  Colonies  were  not  only  at  peace  with  Great  Britain, 
but  generally  loyal  in  their  feelings  towards  her.  In  his 
old  age,  Samuel  Adams  was  by  common  consent  called 
"the  father  of  the  Revolution."  The  title  was  his,  as 
much  because  he  was  the  first  to  foresee,  as  because  he  was 
active  in  furthering,  the  separation. 

From  the  time  when  Adams  was  graduated,  his  father 
perceived  that  his  tastes  and  his  powers  fitted  him  for  poli- 
tics. He  ceased,  therefore,  to  urge  him  to  enter  the  minis- 
try, and  proposed  his  pursuing  the  law.     The  young  man 


12  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1743 

accepted  the  proposal  with  pleasure,  and  eagerly  commenced 
to  study,  but  relinquished  the  design  at  the  desire  of  his 
mother,  and  finally  entered  the  counting-house  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Cushing,  whose  son,  bearing  the  same  name,  was 
many  years  afterward  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives when  Samuel  Adams  was  its  Clerk.  He  is  said  at 
this  time  to  have  had  republished  at  his  own  expense  a 
pamphlet  written  in  the  previous  century,  entitled  "  The 
Englishman's  Right.''  But  although  there  are  several  edi- 
tions of  it  dated  between  the  years  1680  and  1772,  none 
appear  to  have  been  printed  between  1740  and  1750.  One 
of  the  later  editions,  however,  may  have  been  published  at 
his  suggestion. 

The  life  of  a  merchant,  it  was  soon  evident,  was  ill  adapted 
to  his  talents  or  inclinations.  He  had  no  tact  for  business, 
rand  this  was  a  trait  which  characterized  his  whole  after  life. 
While  with  Mr.  Cushing  he  was  oftener  found  in  the 
society  of  political  disputants  debating  the  questions  of 
the  times,  than  in  the  counting-house  bent  over  his  desk. 
The  desire  for  pecuniary  gain,  and  the  excitement  of  com- 
petition in  trade,  had  no  attractions  for  him,  and  probably 
some  of  his  more  methodical  acquaintances  considered  him 
at  this  time  as  a  very  unpromising  and  thriftless  character, 
upon  whom  his  father  had  uselessly  expended  the  cost  of  his 
college  education.  Yet  he  was  no  idler.  He  was  too  ner- 
vously and  actively  constituted  for  indolence.  His  mind 
was  always  employed,  though  on  subjects  then  regarded  as 
unprofitable.  When  Mr.  Cushing  was  questioned  respecting 
the  capacity  of  young  Adams  as  a  tradesman,  he  replied, 
that,  though  active  enough  in  mind  and  body,  he  would 
never  do  for  a  merchant ;  that  his  whole  soul  was  engrossed 
by  politics,  to  which  all  other  subjects  were  neoessarily  sub- 
servient. 

Even  now  he  had  weight  in  the  people's  party.  Several  of 
his  contemporaries  speak  of  him  as  a  recognized  leader  in 
the  popular  cause,  which  had  already  a  defined  existence. 


1746.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  13 

John  Adams,  writing  in  1772,  says,  in  reference  to  Samuel 
Adams  and  himself,  "  they  have  been  steadfast  and  immova- 
ble in  the  cause  since  1761,  and  one  of  them,  Mr.  Samuel 
Adams,  for  full  twenty  years  before  "  ;  *  which  would  fix 
the  commencement  of  his  patriotic  career  in  1741.  He  re- 
mained but  a  few  months  with  Mr.  Cushing.  Some  time 
afterward,  his  father,  anxious  to  see  him  established  in  busi- 
ness, advanced  him  one  thousand  pounds  with  which  to  com- 
mence for  himself.  But  disastrous  results  came  from  this 
attempt.  Having  unfortunately  trusted  a  friend  to  the 
value  of  half  his  stock,  he  became  greatly  embarrassed  him- 
self. This  person  soon  after  met  with  reverses  which  he 
represented  to  his  creditor,  who  therefore  characteristically 
never  demanded  the  debt;  and  this  and  other  losses  soon 
consumed  all  his  possessions.  He  then  joined  his  father  in 
business,  and  conducted  the  affairs  of  the  malt-house  which 
adjoined  the  family  dwelling  on  Purchase  Street ;  and  from 
that  time  he  probably  made  no  effort  to  go  beyond  the  posi- 
tion of  a  subordinate  partner. 

His  father  enjoyed  an  increased  popularity  after  the  gov- 
ernment persecutions  to  deprive  him  of  his  property.  On 
the  4th  of  June,  1746,  at  the  annual  town-meeting,  he  was 
^elected  a  Representative  to  serve  in  the  place  of  Andrew 
Oliver,  who  had  been  chosen  a  Councillor.  The  son  perhaps 
obtained  access  to  thejjfihaififl  of  the  House,  arid  nnWI  the 
political  occurrences  of  the  times.  The  next  year,  his  father 
was  refused  as  a  member  of  the  Council  by  the  Governor, 
who  wanted  no  such  spokesman  of  the  popular  element  in 
that  body. 

The  services  of  Captain  Adams  in  the  Legislature  are  in 
dicated  in  its  journals,  where  his  opinion,  particularly  in 
military  matters,  was  evidently  held  in  high  estimation. 
The  reduction  of  Louisburg  in  the  previous  year  suggested 
to  Governor  Shirley  more  extensive  operations  for  the  con- 
quest of  Canada.     Captain  Adams  was  upon  most  of  the 

*  John  Adams's  Works.  IE.  295. 


14  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1746. 

committees  appointed  on  the  affairs  of  the  war.  The  Legis- 
lature, which  met  on  the  5th  of  June,  1746,  adjourned  on 
the  10th  of  October  to  November  6th,  from  which  time  it  was 
in  session  until  April  of  the  following  year.*  There  seems  to 
have  been  a  constant  demand  for  his  industry  and  judgment 
in  a  curious  variety  of  affairs.  The  subject  of  the  Governor's 
salary,  questions  of  finance  and  settlement  of  estates,  sol- 
diers' petitions,  disbursements  and  expenditures  for  the 
war,  the  drafting  of  state  papers  on  a  diversity  of  topics, 
military  expeditions  and  enlistments,  the  New  Hampshire 
boundary  line,  local  assessments  and  taxations,  and  an 
Address  to  his  Majesty  the  King  through  the  agents,  are 
among  the  matters  injtrusted  to  committees  of  which  he  was 
a  member,  and  at  times  chairman.  In  April,  1747,  he  was 
one  of  a  committee  "  to  consider  some  method  to  prevent  the 
distress  brought  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  Province  by 
the  impressing  of  seamen  out  of  the  coasting  vessels,  and 
other  inhabitants  of  the  Province,  by  the  commanders  and 
other  officers  of  his  Majesty's  ships  of  war."  This  practice 
probably  culminated  in  the  following  November,  when  the 
town  was  the  scene  of  violence  and  riot  in  opposition  to  the 
press-gang  outrages  of  Commodore  Knowles  in  the  public 
streets. 

No  other  means  than  these  scanty  records  exist  by  which 
to  trace  the  services  of  the  elder  Adams  in  the  Assembly ; 
but  that  he  enjoyed  the  well-earned  confidence  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  is  evident ;  while  his  practical  talent  as  a  business 
man  is  displayed  by  his  active  and  leading  part  in  the  public 
counsels.  The  elder  Dexter  knew  him  "  as  a  reputable 
magistrate  in  Boston."  John  Adams,  writing  in  1774, 
remembers  him  as  "  a  gentleman  of  liberal  education  and 
good  abilities  " ;  and  his  more  celebrated  son  in  after  years 
attested  his  wisdom  and  blameless  character. 

During  the  late  war  with  France,  ending  with  the  capture 
of  Louisburg  by  the  New  England  troops,  the  Colonists  had 

*  Journals  of  the  House  from  June  4,  1746,  to  April  25,  1747. 


1747.]  LIFE  OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  15 

been  able  to  ascertain  their  own  strength,  and  were  imbued 
with  increased  confidence  in  their  native  resources.  The 
whole  of  the  fruits  of  their  toil  were  thrown  away  by  the 
treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle ;  and  this  mortifying  event,  to- 
gether with  what  preceded  it,  served  to  remind  them  of 
their  position  in  relation  to  the  home  government.  Numer- 
ous were  the  complaints,  and  the  discussion  of  these  occur- 
rences was  common  among  all  classes.  The  impressment 
riots  indicated  that  the  fire  of  discontent  already  existed, 
and  needed  only  the  proper  occasion  to  be  fanned  into  a 
flame.  The  events  of  the  war,  and  the  government  misman- 
agement (though  Massachusetts  prospered  under  all  these 
circumstances)  prepared  the  people  for  the  struggle  which 
was  at  length  to  rend  the  Colonies  from  the  mother  country. 
The  press  commenced  the  discussion  of  popular  rights,  and 
no  doubt  many  speculative  minds  calculated  the  probable 
fate  of  America  at  some  future  day  as  a  separate  and  inde- 
pendent sovereignty. 

The  idea  now  suggested  itself  to  young  Adams  and  a  few 
of  his  political  friends  to  form  a  club  for  the  special  consid- 
eration oil  public  affairs  both  by  writing  and  debate.  Each 
member  agreed  to  furnish  in  turn  political  essays  for  a 
newspaper  to  be  called  "  The  Public  Advertiser,"  of  which 
the  first  number  appeared  in  January,  1748.  There  are  no 
means  of  ascertaining  the  date  of  the  organization ;  but  it  is  j 
most  probable  that  it  went  into  existence  not  long  before 
the  first  issue  of  the  journal,  and  that  this  was  commenced 
on  the  strength  of  the  communications  promised  by  the 
members.  Who  were  the  other  contributors  is  unknown. 
The  publishers  had  issued  a  printed  circular,  announcing 
that  the  paper  would  appear  at  an  early  period.  It  was 
published  weekly.  The  head  was  embellished  with  a  rough- 
ly executed  wood-cut  representing  Britannia  seated,  and 
liberating  a  bird  confined  by  a  cord  to  the  arms  of  France, 
which  are  lying  on  the  ground  before  her.  The  flight  of  the 
bird,  which  is  on  the  wing,  being  impeded  by  the  cord,  Bri- 


16  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1748. 

tannia  is  in  the  act  of  cutting  the  cord  with  a  pair  of  shears. 
The  Advertiser  had  but  little  foreign  or  domestic  news, 
and  was  devoted  to  political  discussion.  Isaiah  Thomas, 
who  was  engaged  as  a  printer  in  Boston  a  few  years  later, 
and  doubtless  knew  all  the  members  of  the  club,  says  it  con- 
sisted of  "  Whigs,  who  advocated  the  rights  of  the  people 
against  those  measures  of  government  which  were  supposed 
to  infringe  upon  the  privileges  of  the  Province  secured  by 
charter."  *  The  address  to  the  public  in  the  first  number 
holds  that  "  the  present  political  state  affords  matter  for  a 
variety  of  thoughts  of  peculiar  importance  to  the  good  people 
of  New  England."  The  columns  were  open  "  to  whatever 
may  be  adapted  to  state  and  defend  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  mankind."  The  essays  in  the  Advertiser  soon  began  to 
excite  attention,  and  the  opponents  of  the  popular  rights 
party  applied  to  the  association  the  name  of  "  Whipping- 
post Club,"  which  did  not  deter  them  from  publishing  their 
essays  in  each  issue  of  the  paper.  Extracts  from  two  of 
these,  written  by  Samuel  Adams,  will  serve  to  illustrate  his 
style  and  sentiments  at  the  age  of  twenty-six.  One  has  for 
its  subject,  "  Loyalty  and  Sedition."  In  defining  the  true 
meaning  of  the  words,  he  says :  — 

"  But  we  oftentimes  perceive  such  significations  assumed  by  those 
who  find  the  wrong  use  of  the  words  conducive  to  the  increase  of 
power  or  gain,  that  it  is  difficult  to  tell  whether  loyalty  is  really 
commendable  or  sedition  blameworthy.  True  loyalty  in  the  sense 
just  now  explained  is  the  beauty  and  perfection  of  a  well-constituted 
state.  It  cannot  indeed  subsist  in  an  arbitrary  government,  because 
it  is  founded  in  the  love  and  possession  of  liberty.  It  includes  in  it 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  our  Constitution,  its  conveniences  and  de- 
fects as  well  as  its  real  advantages ;  a  becoming  jealousy  of  our  im- 
munities, and  a  steadfast  resolution  to  maintain  them.  It  delights 
in  the  quiet  and  thankful  enjoyment  of  a  good  administration,  and  it 
is  the  scourge  of  the  griping  oppressor  and  haughty  invader  of  our 
liberties. 

*  Thomas's  History  of  Printing. 


1748.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  17 

"  But  sedition  is  founded  on  the  depraved  and  inordinate  passions 
of  the  mind :  it  is  a  weak,  feverish,  sickly  thiug,  a  boisterous  and 
unnatural  vigor,  which  cannot  support  itself  long,  and  oftentimes 
destroys  the  unhappy  patient.  It  proceeds  from  gross  mistake  or 
great  wickedness,  from  lust  of  power  or  gain,  in  the  first  promoters 
of  it,  and  from  untamable  obstinacy  and  a  vitiated  palate  that  can- 
not relish  the  happiness  of  a  free  state  in  the  creatures  of  their  de- 
signs. 

"  It  is  a  very  great  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  object  of  loyalty 
is  the  authority  and  interest  of  one  individual  man,  however  dignified 
by  the  applause  or  enriched  by  the  success  of  popular  actions.  This 
has  led  millions  into  such  a  degree  of  dependence  and  submission, 
that  they  have  at  length  found  themselves  to  homage  the  instruments 
of  their  ruin  at  the  very  time  they  were  at  work  to  effect  it.  The 
true  object  of  loyalty  is  a  good  legal  constitution,  which,  as  it  con- 
demns every  instance  of  oppression  and  lawless  power,  derives  a  cer- 
tain remedy  to  the  sufferer  by  allowing  him  to  remonstrate  his 
grievances,  and  pointing  out  methods  of  relief  when  the  gentle  arts 
of  persuasion  have  lost  their  efficacy.  Whoever,  therefore,  insin- 
uates notions  of  government  contrary  to  the  constitution,  or  in  any 
degree  winks  at  any  measures  to  suppress  or  even  to  weaken  it,  is 
not  a  loyal  man.  Whoever  acquaints  us  that  we  have  no  right  to 
examine  into  the  conduct  of  those  who,  though  they  derive  their 
power  from  us  to  serve  the  common  interests,  make  use  of  it  to  im- 
poverish and  ruin  us,  is  in  a  degree  a  rebel  —  to  the  undoubted 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  people.  He  that  despises  his  neighbor's 
happiness  because  he  wears  a  worsted  cap  or  leathern  apron,  he  that 
struts  immeasurably  above  the  lower  size  of  people,  and  pretends  to 
adjust  the  rights  of  men  by  the  distinctions  of  fortune,  is  not  over 
loyal.  He  that  aggravates  beyond  measure  the  well-meant  failings 
of  a  warm  zeal  for  liberty,  he  that  leaves  no  stone  unturned  to  de- 
fend and  propagate  the  schemes  of  illegal  power,  cannot  be  esteemed 
a  loyal  man.  Indeed,  the  reverse  use  of  these  words  may  possibly 
find  authorities  in  some  parts  of  the  world  where  language  and 
sense  are  deluged  in  the  torrent  of  arbitrary  power." 

sj^   These  sentiments  on  popular  liberty,  the  right  of  "  remon- 
strating grievances,"  and  the  views  which  at  that  distant 


18  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1748. 

period  he  had  obtained  of  the  rights  of  the  citizen  as  com- 
pared with  the  divine  right  of  kings,  will  suggest,  when  at- 
tentively considered,  the  consistency  exhibited  by  the  writer 
throughout  his  life,  which  was  one  of  the  most  marked 
and  admirable  traits  of  his  character.  A  careful  scrutiny 
of  his  career  for  more  than  forty  years,  including  the  most 
eventful  period  of  American  history,  reveals  no  instance  of 
^^inconsistency.  The  principles  which  became  fixed  in  his 
mind,  as  soon  as  he  was  capable  of  understanding  political 
subjects,  were  never  changed ;  and  long  after  the  Revolution 
had  passed,  and  party  spirit  assumed  the  place  of  the  more 
united  patriotism  of  the  Revolutionary  period,  the  same 
views  and  expressions  will  be  found  in  his  latest  writings, 
extending  into  the  following  century. 

In  another  essay,  written  during  the  second  year  of  the 
"Advertiser,"  he  considers  the  subject  of  liberty,  —  a 
theme  which  seems  to  have  always  occupied  his  mind,  as  is 
evidenced  by  those  who  were  contemporary  with  him,  and 
remembered  his  early  course.  His  writings  generally  give 
an  insight  into  the  class  of  books  which  he  must  have 
perused.  He  had  manifestly  been  a  student  of  the  great 
authors  on  government,  and  was  familiar  with  Roman  his- 
tory. His  works  and  conversations  all  his  life  are  tinged 
with  the  doctrines  of  those  writers,  and  all  his  politics  are 
founded  on  their  principles. 

"'Libertate  modice  utantur.  Temperatam  earn  salubrem  et 
singulis  et  civitatibus  esse :  nimiam  et  aliis  gravem,  et  ipsis  qui 

habeant  effrenatam  et  praecipitem  esse Alienis  armis  partam, 

externa  fide  redditam  libertatem  sua  cura  custodirent  servarentque, 
ut  populus  Romanus  dignis  datam  libertatem  ac  munus  suum  bene 
positum  sciret.'  —  Orat.  T.  Quint,  ad  Graec.  Civit  apud  Liv. 
XXXIV.  49. 

"  There  is  no  one  thing  which  mankind  are  more  passionately  fond 
of,  which  they  fight  with  more  zeal  for,  which  they  possess  with  more 
anxious  jealousy  and  fear  of  losing,  than  liberty.  But  it  has  fared 
with  this,  as  with  many  other  things,  that  the  true  notion  and  just 


1748.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  19 

definition  of  it  has  been  but  little  understood,  at  the  same  time  that 
zeal  for  it  and  disputes  about  it  have  produced  endless  altercations. 
There  is,  there  certainly  is  such  a  thing  as  liberty,  which  distin- 
guishes man  from  the  beasts,  and  a  society  of  wise  and  reasonable 
creatures  from  the  brutal  Herd,  where  the  strongest  horns  are  the 
strongest  laws.  And  though  the  notions  of  men  were  ten  times 
more  confused  and  unsettled,  and  their  opinions  more  various  about 
this  matter  than  they  are,  there  yet  remains  an  internal  and  essen- 
tial distinction  between  this  same  liberty  and  slavery. 

"  In  a  former  paper,  the  true  notion  of  loyalty  has  been  consid- 
ered ;  I  shall  now  offer  to  the  public  some  general  thoughts  upon 
liberty,  in  order  rightly  to  apprehend  which  subject  we  must  con- 
sider man  in  two  different  states,  namely,  those  of  Nature  and 
of  Society. 

"  In  the  state  of  nature,  every  man  has  a  right  to  think  and  act 
according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  mind,  which,  in  that  state,  are 
subject  to  no  other  control  and  can  be  commanded  by  no  other  power 
than  the  laws  and  ordinances  of  the  great  Creator  of  all  things. 
The  perfection  of  liberty  therefore,  in  a  state  of  nature,  is  for  every 
man  to  be  free  from  any  external  force,  and  to  perform  such  actions 
as  in  his  own  mind  and  conscience  he  judges  to  be  rightest ;  which 
liberty  no  man  can  truly  possess  whose  mind  is  enthralled  by  irreg- 
ular and  inordinate  passions ;  since  it  is  no  great  privilege  to  be  free 
from  external  violence  if  the  dictates  of  the  mind  are  controlled  by 
a  force  within,  which  exerts  itself  above  reason. 

"  This  is  liberty  in  a  state  of  nature,  which,  as  no  man  ought  to 
be  abridged  of,  so  no  man  has  a  right  to  give  up,  or  even  part  with 
any  portion  of  it,  but  in  order  to  secure  the  rest  and  place  it  upon 
a  more  solid  foundation;  it  being  equally  with  our  lives  the  gift 
of  the  same  bounteous  Author  of  all  things.*  As,  therefore,  no 
man's  life  is  his  own  in  such  a  sense  as  that  he  may  wantonly 
destroy  it  at  his  own  pleasure,  or  submit  it  to  the  wanton  pleasure 
of  another,  so  neither  is  his  liberty.  And  had  mankind  continued 
in  that  innocent  and  happy  state  in  which  the  sacred  writings  rep- 
resent them  as  first  created,  it  is  possible  that  this  liberty  would 
have  been  enjoyed  in  such  perfection  as  to  have  rendered  the  em- 

*  Compare  the  Eights  of  the  Colonists,  November,  1772 ;  and  the  Declara- 
tion of  Eights  in  the  Congress  of  1774. 


20  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1748. 

bodying   into  civil   society  and  the   security  of  human  laws  alto- 
gether needless. 

"  But  though  in  the  present  corrupt  and  degenerate  times  no  such 
state  of  nature  can  with  any  regularity  exist,  it  will  not,  however, 
be  difficult  from  the  description  we  have  given  of  liberty  in  that 
state  to  form  the  true  notion  and  settle  the  just  bounds  of  it  in  a 
state  of  society  and  civic  government.  But  here,  too,  we  must  dis- 
tinguish and  consider  liberty  as  it  respects  the  whole  body  and  as  it 
respects  each  individual.  As  it  respects  the  whole  body,  it  is  then 
enjoyed  when  neither  legislative  nor  executive  powers  (by  which  I 
mean  those  men  with  whom  are  intrusted  the  power  of  making 
laws  and  of  executing  them)  are  disturbed  by  any  internal  passion 
or  hindered  by  any  external  force  from  making  the  wisest  laws  and 
executing  them  in  the  best  manner ;  when  the  safety,  the  security, 
and  the  happiness  of  all  is  the  real  care  and  steady  pursuit  of  those 
whose  business  it  is  to  care  for  and  pursue  it ;  in  one  short  word, 
where  no  laws  are  carried  through  humor  or  prejudice,  nor  con- 
trolled in  their  proper  execution  by  lust  of  power  in  the  great,  nor 
wanton  licentiousness  in  the  vulgar. 

"  As  it  respects  individuals,  a  man  is  then  free  when  he  freely  en- 
joys the  security  of  the  laws  and  the  rights  to  which  he  is  born ; 
when  he  is  hindered  by  no  violence  from  claiming  those  rights  and 
enjoying  that  security,  but  may  at  any  time  demand  the  protection 
of  the  laws  under  which  he  lives,  and  be  sure  when  demanded  to 
enjoy  it.  This  is  what  I  take  to  be  liberty ;  and  considered  in  this  - 
light,  all  the  fine  things  said  of  it  by  ancient  and  modern  do  justly 
belong  to  it.  O  Libertas !  O  Dea  certe !  —  it  is  the  choicest  gift 
that  Heaven  has  lent  to  man ;  an  emanation  from  the  Father  of 
Lights ;  an  image  and  representation  of  the  government  of  the  Su- 
preme Director  of  all  things,  which,  though  it  can  never  be  con- 
trolled by  any  superior  force,  is  yet  ever  guided  by  the  laws  of 
infinite  wisdom. 

"  But  alas !  in  this  exalted  sense,  liberty  is  rather  admired  in  the 
world  than  truly  enjoyed.  What  multitudes  of  persons  are  there 
who  have  not  so  much  as  the  shadow  of  it !  who  hold  their  prop- 
erty and  even  their  lives  by  no  other  tenure  than  the  sovereign  will 
of  a  tyrant,  and  he  often  the  worst  and  most  detestable  of  men, 
who,  to  gratify  the  least  humor  or  passion  in  his  nature,  does  not 
scruple  to  massacre  them  by  thousands !     Sure  it  is  true  what  ortho- 


I748.J  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS  21 

dox  divines  tell  us,  that  men  are  apostate  from  God,  since  in  his 
righteous  providence  he  subjects  so  many  of  them  to  such  mis- 
erable fate! 

"  But  there  are  other  states  and  civil  societies  in  the  world,  the 
model  of  whose  government  seems  to  promise  the  sure  enjoyment 
of  this  blessing ;  which  yet,  if  we  attentively  examine,  we  shall 
find  to  be  really  destitute  of  it.  We  shall  often  find,  that  where  the 
forms  of  it  are  observed,  the  substance  of  it  is  wanting;  for,  as 
that  man  is  truly  a  slave,  who,  though  impelled  by  no  external  vio- 
lence, is  yet  carried  away  by  the  impetuosity  of  his  passions  to  do 
those  things  which  are  abhorrent  from  his  nature  and  his  reason,  so 
neither  can  the  people  be  called  free,  who,  though  they  make  their 
own  laws,  are  yet  blinded  by  prejudice  and  diverted  by  undue  influ- 
ence from  uniformly  pursuing  their  own  interest. 

"It  has  been  a  question  much  controverted  in  the  world  what  \f 
form  of  government  is  best,  and  in  what  system  this  liberty  is  best 
consulted  and  preserved.  I  cannot  say  that  I  am  wholly  free  from 
that  prejudice  which  generally  possesses  men  in  favor  of  their  own 
country,  and  the  manners  they  have  been  used  to  from  their  infancy. 
But  I  must  declare,  for  my  own  part,  that  there  is  no  form  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, which  I  have  ever  heard  of,  appears  to  me  so  well  calcu- 
lated to  preserve  this  blessing,  or  to  secure  to  its  subjects  all  the 
most  valuable  advantages  of  civil  society,  as  the  English.  For  in 
none  that  I  have  ever  met  with  is  the  power  of  the  governors  and 
the  rights  of  the  governed  more  nicely  adjusted,  or  the  power  which 
is  necessary  in  the  very  nature  of  government  to  be  intrusted  in  the 
hands  of  some,  by  wiser  checks  prevented  from  growing  exorbitant. 
This  Constitution  has  indeed  passed  through  various  amendations,  but 
the  principal  parts  of  it  are  of  very  ancient  standing,  and  have  con- 
tinued through  the  several  successions  of  kings  to  this  day ;  having 
never  been  in  any  great  degree  attacked  by  any,  but  they  have  lost 
their  lives  or  their  crowns  in  the  attempt. 

"  The  two  main  provisions  by  which  a  certain  share  in  the  govern- 
ment is  secured  to  the  people  are  their  Parliaments  and  their  juries ; 
by  the  former  of  which  no  laws  can  be  made  without  their  consent, 
and  by  the  latter  none  can  be  executed  without  their  judgment.  By 
this  means  the  subject  can  never  be  oppressed  by  bad  laws,  nor  lose 
the  security  of  good  ones,  but  by  his  own  fault ;  and  though  I  am  not 
such  an  extravagant  admirer  of  my  own  country  as  to  suppose  that 


22  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1748. 

Parliament  never  made  unwise  laws,  or  that  jurors  never  put  false 
constructions  on  wise  ones,  yet  I  will  venture  to  assert  that  every 
man's  security  and  happiness  is  much  safer  in  such  hands  than  under 
an  arbitrary  or  aristocratical  form  of  government.  Especially  since, 
by  the  wise  provisions  of  our  ancestors,  both  these  powers  are  of 
short  continuance;  for  power  intrusted  for  a  short  time  is  not  so 
likely  to  be  perverted  as  that  which  is  perpetual. 

"  From  this  happy  Constitution  of  our  mother  country,  ours  in  this 
is  copied,  or  rather  improved  upon.  Our  invaluable  charter  secures 
to  us  all  the  English  liberties,  besides  which  we  have  some  addi- 
tional privileges  which  the  common  people  there  have  not.  Our 
fathers  had  so  severely  felt  the  effects  of  tyranny  and  the  weight  of 
the  bishop's  yoke,  that  they  underwent  the  greatest  difficulties  and 
toils  to  secure  to  themselves  and  transmit  to  their  posterity  those  in- 
f  valuable  blessings  ;  and  we,  their  posterity,  are  this  day  reaping  the 
fruits  of  their  toils.  Happy  beyond  expression  !  —  in  the  form  of 
our  government,  in  the  liberty  we  enjoy,  —  if  we  know  our  own 
happiness  and  how  to  improve  it.  But  neither  the  wisest  constitu- 
tion nor  the  wisest  laws  will  secure  the  liberty  and  happiness  of  a 
people  whose  manners  are  universally  corrupt.  He  therefore  is  the 
truest  friend  to  the  liberty  of  his  country  who  tries  most  to  promote 
its  virtue,  and  who,  so  far  as  his  power  and  influence  extend,  will 
not  suffer  a  man  to  be  chosen  into  any  office  of  power  and  trust  who 
ita  wise  and  virtuous  mmJfWe  must  not  conclude  merely  upon 
"aTinan^s  na^nn^uingTapo^liberty,  and  using  the  charming  sound, 
that  he  is  fit  to  be  trusted  with  the  liberties  of  his  country.  It  is 
not  unfrequent  to  hear  men  declaim  loudly  upon  liberty,  who,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  whole  tenor  of  their  actions,  mean  nothing  else  by 
it  but  their  own  liberty,  —  to  oppress  without  control  or  the  restraint 
of  laws  all  who  are  poorer  or  weaker  than  themselves.  It  is  not,  I 
say,  unfrequent  to  see  such  instances,  though  at  the  same  time  I 
esteem  it  a  justice  due  to  my  country  to  say  that  it  is  not  without 
shining  examples  of  the  contrary  kind ;  —  examples  of  men  of  a  dis- 
tinguished attachment  to  this  same  liberty  I  have  been  describing ; 
whom  no  hopes  could  draw,  no  terrors  could  drive,  from  steadily 
pursuing,  in  their  sphere,  the  true  interests  of  their  country  ;  whose 
fidelity  has  been  tried  in  the  nicest  and  tenderest  manner,  and  has 
been  ever  firm  and  unshaken. 

tt  The  sum  of  all  is,  if  we  would  most  truly  enjoy  this  gift  of 


1748.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  23 

• 

Heaven,  let  us  become  a  virtuous  people :  then  shall  we  both  de- 
serve and  enjoy  it.  While,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  are  universally 
vicious  and  debauched  in  our  manners,  though  the  form  of  our  Con- 
stitution carries  the  face  of  the  most  exalted  freedom,  we  shall  in 
reality  be  the  most  abject  slaves." 

In  March,  1748,  Mr.  Adams  had  the  misfortune  to  lose 
his  father,  who  died  in  Boston  in  his  fifty-ninth  year.  The 
cause  of  Ms  death  is  not  known.  His  will  was  made  the  day 
before  his  decease.  Throughout  a  long  and  methodical  life, 
he  had  performed  in  an  exemplary  manner  the  duties  of  a 
good  citizen,  an  affectionate  husband,  and  an  indulgent 
father.  He  lived  at  a  time  when  party  lines  were  beginning 
to  be  drawn  between  the  government  and  the  friends  of 
popular  rights ;  and  those  who  at  the  time  of  his  death  were 
entering  upon  manhood  must  have  long  remembered  his 
sterling  integrity  of  purpose,  when  in  after  years  they 
came  to  fill  conspicuous  positions  in  the  Revolution.  Early 
joining  the  popular  side,  he  had  incurred  the  dislike  of 
many  of  the  other  party,  particularly  of  Hutchinson,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Government  Council,  and  afterwards  Judge  of 
Probate  for  the  County  of  Suffolk,  whose  animosity,  far 
from  disappearing  with  the  death  of  his  opponent,  was 
directed  against  the  son  until  the  close  of  the  Revolution. 
The  Boston  "Weekly  Gazette  and  the  Independent  Adver- 
tiser contain  notices  of  Mr.  Adams's  death,  —  the  latter  as 
follows :  — 

"  Last  week  died  and  was  decently  interred  the  remains  of  Sam- 
uel Adams,  Esq. ;  a  gentleman  who  sustained  many  public  offices 
among  us,  and  for  some  time  past  represented  this  town  in  the 
General  Assembly.  He  was  one  who  well  understood  and  rightly 
pursued  the  civil  and  religious  interests  of  this  people ;  a  true  New 
England  Man ;  an  honest  Patriot.  Help,  Lord,  for  such  wise  and 
godly  men  cease,  and  such  faithful  members  fail  from  among  the 
sons  of  New  England."  * 

*  N.  E.  Hist,  and  Genealogical  Register,  VII.  44. 


24  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1748. 

The  will  of  Mr.  Adams*  appoints  his  sons  Samuel  and 
Joseph,  and  his  son-in-law  James  Allen,  of  Boston,  his  ex- 
ecutors. His  estate,  real  and  personal,  was  left  to  his  wife 
Mary,  except  in  case  she  should  marry  again,  when  half  the 
property  was  to  accrue  to  his  children,  Samuel,  Joseph, 
and  Mary,  the  wife  of  James  Allen.  After  his  wife's  decease, 
the  whole  estate  was  to  be  divided  between  them.  He  affec- 
tionately provides  for  the  interest  of  his  favorite  son  by  a 
clause  relating  to  the  sum  advanced  to  him  several  years 
before  to  embark  in  business,  the  unfortunate  result  of 
which  has  already  been  shown.  He  says :  "  My  son  Samuel, 
being  my  eldest  son,  to  receive  his  full  third  part,  exclusive 
of  and  besides  the  sum  of  a  thousand  pounds,  old  tenor,  he 
has  already  received,  and  for  which  he  is  made  debtor  in  my 
books ;  it  being  my  will  that  he  be  discharged  from  said  debt 
at  my  decease." 

The  estate  being  settled,  Samuel  Adams  succeeded  to  his 
father's  business  of  a  brewer,  which  he  conducted  in  person. 
It  enabled  him  to  maintain  a  respectable  rank  in  society. 
The  Hudibrastic  poet  Green,  at  a  later  day,  in  some  of  his 
lampoons  of  conspicuous  characters,  makes  mention  of  him 
as  "  Sam  the  maltster."  Admiral  Coffin,  many  years  after, 
relating  events  prior  to  the  Revolution,  remembered  that 
in  boyhood  he  had  carried  malt  on  his  back  from  Sam. 
Adams's  brewery ;  and  one  of  the  British  writers  during 
the  Revolution,  in  an  attack  upon  him  for  procuring  certain 
important  results,  speaks  slightingly  of  him  as  a  "  curer  of 
bacon." 

Succeeding  to  the  social  and  political  station  which  had 
been  occupied  by  his  father,  Adams  retained  all  his  father's 
friends,  and  also  saw  growing  up  around  him  a  circle  of 
young  men  who  subsequently  occupied  distinguished  posi- 
tions in  political  life.  Among  the  most  intimate  of  his 
father's  acquaintances  was  the  Rev.  Samuel  Checkley,  whose 
position  at  the  New  South  Church  had  been  procured  by  the 

*  Lib.  41,  p.  33,  Kecords  of  Probate  Court,  Boston. 


1749.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  25 


* 


influence  of  the  elder  Adams,  and  by  whom  the  son  had 
been  baptized.  In  his  visits  to  his  reverend  friend,  he  formed 
an  attachment  for  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  and  they  were 
married  at  her  father's  house  on  the  17th  of  October,  1749. 
Miss  Checkley  was  then  twenty-four  years  of  age,  and,  as  her 
daughter  testifies,  was  a  rare  example  of  virtue  and  piety, 
blended  with  a  retiring  and  modest  demeanor,  and  the 
charms  of  elegant  womanhood.*  Only  two  of  their  five 
children  survived  their  mother ;  —  Samuel,  afterwards  a  sur- 
geon in  the  Continental  army,  who  died  unmarried ;  and 
Hannah,  who  married  Captain  Thomas  Wells,  an  officer  of 
the  Revolution.  This  union,  which  was  an  extremely  happy 
one,  lasted  nearly  eight  years,  when  Mr.  Adams  sustained  his 
severest  affliction,  the  loss  of  his  wife.  She  died  July  25, 
1757.  In  the  family  Bible  on  that  day  he  wrote  :  "  To  her 
husband  she  was  as  sincere  a  friend  as  she  was  a  faithful 
wife.  Her  exact  economy  in  all  her  relative  capacities,  her 
kindred  on  his  side  as  well  as  her  own  admire.  She  ran  her 
Christian  race  with  remarkable  steadiness,  and  finished  in 
triumph !  She  left  two  small  children.  God  grant  they 
may  inherit  her  graces ! "  The  families  of  Adams  and 
Checkley  had  been  connected  by  marriage  in  the  previous 
century,  Captain  John  Adams,  the  grandfather  of  Samuel 
Adams,  having  married  Hannah,  the  daughter  of  Anthony 
Checkley,  Esq.,  first  Attorney-General  of  the  Province  under 
the  new  charter,  f 

The  year  following  his  wife's  death,  Mr.  Adams  was  beset 
with  an  attachment  by  the  sheriff  on  the  family  estate, 
arising  from  the  unsettled  affairs  of  the  Land  Bank,  which 
had  been  dissolved  seventeen  years  before.     During  that 

*  The  maiden  name  of  the  mother  of  Miss  Checkley  was  Elizabeth  Eolfe. 
In  Drake's  "  History  of  Boston,"  p.  535,  will  be  found  an  interesting  account 
of  her  escape,  with  her  sister  and  mother,  from  the  Indians,  in  their  memorable 
descent  upon  Haverhill  in  the  summer  of  1708.  Her  father,  the  Rev.  Benjamin 
Rolfe,  minister  of  the  town,  was  killed,  together  with  nearly  one  hundred  of  the 
inhabitants. 

t  Drake,  p.  534. 


26  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1758. 

i 

long  period  this  business  had  been  intrusted  to  commission- 
ers under  a  law  of  the  Province  passed  for  that  purpose. 
Many  intricate  questions  were  involved  in  attempts  to  adjust 
the  accounts,  each  member  being  liable  for  the  debts  of  the 
whole.  To  add  to  these  difficulties  and  complications,  the 
company's  records,  with  the  building  containing  them,  had 
been  destroyed  by  fire,  and  no  means  remained  of  ascertain- 
ing the  names  of  the  debtors  or  the  amounts  due  from  them, 
except  what  they  might  themselves  furnish.  Ruin  and  dis- 
tress were  entailed  upon  many,  and  successive  laws  had 
been  passed  by  the  Legislature  with  a  view  to  an  arrange- 
ment. The  virulence  with  which  the  suit  seems  to  have 
been  pursued  against  the  Adamses  may  have  arisen  from  the 
elder  Adams  having  been  a  director  of  the  bank,  and  proba- 
I  bly  its  principal  member.  The  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 
1  authorities  to  seize  and  sell  the  property  gave  Samuel  Adams 
!  his  first  opportunity  to  openly  avow  his  opposition  to  the 
;  arbitrary  exercise  of  Parliamentary  rule  in  the  Colony.  In 
common  with  a  large  party,  he  had  at  that  early  day  re- 
garded the  dissolution  of  the  Land  Bank  as  an  unwarranta- 
ble encroachment  on  the  charter  rights  of  the  people,  and 
an  illegal  interference  in  their  local  concerns.  In  August, 
1758,  the  following  notice  appeared  in  the  Boston  News- 
Letter  :  — 

"To  be  sold  at  public  Auction  at  the  Exchange  Tavern  in  Boston, 
To-morrow  at  noon.  The  Dwelling  House,  Malt-House,  and  other 
buildings,  with  the  Garden  and  lands  adjoining,  and  the  Wharf, 
Dock  and  Flats  before  the  same,  being  part  of  the  estate  of  the  late 
Samuel  Adams,  Esq.,  deceased,  and  is  scituate  near  Bull -Wharf,  at 
the  lower  end  of  Summer  Street  in  Boston  aforesaid,  the  said  estate 
being  taken  by  warrant  or  execution  under  the  hand  and  seal  of  the 
Hon.  Commissioners  for  the  more  speedy  finishing  the  Land-Bank, 
or  Manufactory  scheme.  .  .  . 

"Stephen  Greenleaf"* 

The  sale,  however,  probably  did  not  take  place  "  to-mor- 

*  N.  E.  Hist,  and  Genealogical  Register,  VII.  44. 


1758.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  27 

row,"  as  advertised;  for  in  the  next  issue  of  the  News- 
Letter,  a  week  later,  Mr.  Adams  appears  in  the  following 
note  to  the  sheriff:  — 

"To  Stephen  Greenleaf,  Esq. 

"  Sir  I  observe  your  Advertisement  for  the  sale  of  the  Estate  of 
Samuel  Adams,  Esq.,  director  of  the  Land-Bank  Company.  Your 
predecessor,  Colonel  Pollard,  had  the  same  affair  in  hand  five  years 
before  his  death ;  but  with  all  his  known  firmness  of  mind,  he  never 
brought  the  matter  to  any  conclusion,  and  his  Precept,  I  am  told,  is 
not  returned  to  this  Day.  The  reason  was  —  he,  as  well  as  myself, 
was  advised  by  gentlemen  of  the  law,  that  his  proceeding  was  illegal 
and  unwarrantable  ;  and  therefore  he  very  prudently  declined  enter- 
ing so  far  into  this  affair  as  to  subject  his  own  Estate  to  danger. 
How  far  your  determination  may  lead  you,  you  know  better  than  I. 
I  would  only  beg  leave,  with  freedom,  to  assure  you,  that  I  am  ad- 
vised and  determined  to  prosecute  to  the  law  any  person  whomsoever 
who  shall  trespass  upon  that  Estate,  and  remain 

"  Your  humble  servant 

"Samuel  Adams.* 
"Boston,  Aug.  16,  1758." 

This  representation  seems  to  have  had  the  desired  effect ; 
and  the  sheriff,  unwilling  to  incur  the  responsibility,  deferred 
the  sale  to  September  22d,  and  then  again  to  the  29th,  when 
it  was  stated  that  attendance  would  be  given  between  twelve 
and  one  o'clock  on  that  day ;  but  the  sale  did  not  take  place, 
and  the  property  remained  in  the  family  possession. 

On  some  one  of  these  occasions,  if  not  when  Colonel  Pol- 
lard attempted  the  same  procedure  several  years  before, 
Adams  appeared  in  person  on  the  ground  and  prevented  the 
sale.  Hutchinson  refers  to  it  in  his  History  of  Massachu- 
setts.    He  says :  — 

"  Mr.  S.  Adams's  father  had  been  one  of  the  directors  of  the  Land 
Bank  in  1741,  which  was  dissolved  by  an  act  of  Parliament.  After 
his  decease,  his  estate  was  put  up  for  sale  at  public  auction  under 

*  New  England  Hist,  and  Genealogical  Register,  "VH.  44. 


28  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1758. 

authority  of  an  act  of  the  General  Assembly.  The  son  first  made 
himself  conspicuous  on  this  occasion.  He  attended  the  sale,  threat- 
ened the  sheriff  to  bring  an  action  against  him,  and  threatened  all 
who  should  attempt  to  enter  upon  the  estate  under  pretence  of  a 
purchase ;  and  by  intimidating  both  the  sheriff  and  those  persons 
who  intended  to  purchase,  he  prevented  the  sale,  kept  the  estate  in 
his  possession,  and  the  debt  to  the  Land  Bank  Company  remained 
unsatisfied."  * 

What  hand  Hutchinson  himself  had  in  the  framing  and 
passage  of  the  "  act  of  the  General  Assembly  "  referred  to, 
he  does  not  state.  His  hatred  of  Samuel  Adams  knew  no 
bounds ;  and  his  third  volume,  written  in  England  in  old  age, 
after  his  disgraceful  and  final  departure  from  Boston,  was 
penned  when  his  heart  rankled  with  chagrin  and  disappoint- 
ment,—  produced  by  the  agency  of  Samuel  Adams  more 
than  that  of  any  other  man.  He  well  knew  that  the  suits 
against  the  Adams  estate  were  unjust  and  cruel;  but  he 
believed  that  the  spirit  of  the  proprietor  could  be  crushed 
by  reducing  him  to  poverty,  and  it  was  not  until  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Kevolution  that  he  learned  his  mis- 
take. Bancroft,  writing  from  contemporary  evidence,  says 
that  on  this  occasion  Adams  "  appeared  in  defence  of  Colo- 
nial supremacy  "  against  an  act  of  Parliament  "  overruling 
the  laws  of  the  Colony,"  and  that  "  by  his  success  he  grati- 
fied alike  his  filial  piety  and  his  love  of  his  country."  f 

Hutchinson  always  prided  himself  upon  his  instrumen- 
tality in  abolishing  a  paper  currency.  Fifteen  years  after- 
wards when  he  was  Governor  of  the  Province,  and  Samuel 
Adams  was  denounced  as  "  the  chief  of  the  Revolution " 
by  the  ministry,  this  subject  was  brought  up  in  the  cele- 
brated controversy  between  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  the  Governor,  who  referred  to  the  act  of  Parliament 
which  had  broken  up  the  Land  Bank  Company  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  authority  of  Parliament  over  the  Colonies,  — 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  IH.  294.  t  Bancroft,  V.  195. 


1758.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  29 

the  validity  of  the  act  not  having  been  disputed  by  those 
persons  immediately  affected  by  it.  It  was  true  that  none  of 
the  company  raised  any  appeal  against  the  act,  young  Adams, 
apparently,  being  the  only  person  who  publicly  opposed  it 
on  anything  like  constitutional  grounds ;  but  in  the  con- 
troversy alluded  to,  looking  back  to  this  time,  he  says :  — 

"The  act  of  Parliament  passed  in  1741  for  putting  an  end  to 
several  unwarrantable  schemes  mentioned  by  your  Excellency,  was 
designed  for  the  general  good ;  and,  if  the  validity  of  it  was  not 
disputed,  it  cannot  be  urged  as  a  concession  of  the  supreme  author- 
ity to  make  laws  binding  on  us  in  all  cases  whatsoever ;  but  if  the 
design  of  it  was  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  Province,  it  was,  in 
one  respect  at  least,  greatly  complained  of  by  the  persons  more  im- 
mediately affected  by  it;  and  to  remedy  the  inconvenience,  the 
Legislature  of  this  Province  passed  an  act  directly  militating  with 
it ;  which  is  the  strongest  evidence  that,  although  they  may  have 
submitted  sub  silentio  to  some  acts  of  Parliament  that  they  con- 
ceived might  operate  for  their  benefit,  they  did  not  conceive  them- 
selves bound  by  any  of  its  acts,  which  they  judged  would  operate 
to  the  injury  even  of  individuals."* 

The  elder  Dexter,  who  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Sam- 
uel Adams,  stated  that  in  this  cause,  in  which  Adams  "  had 
powerful  interests  to  contend  against,  he  gained  the  respect 
of  every  party  by  the  acuteness  of  his  wit  and  the  depth 
of  his  understanding,' '  and  that  the  act  of  the  Legislature 
liberating  the  directors  from  prosecution  was  brought  about 
through  "  the  influence  of  his  pen  and  language."  f  Thus 
he  not  only  saved  his  own  homestead,  but  released  others 
from  the  unjust  gripe  of  the  Parliamentary  mandate.  The 
passage  of  that  act  was  the  germ  of  the  great  issues,  which 
resulted  in  an  emphatic  denial,  by  the  Legislature,  of  Parlia- 
mentary authority,  and  served  as  a  precedent  to  sustain  the 
Colony  in  the  controversy  on  that  subject. 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  394. 

t  Thacher,  Funeral  Discourse,  1804,  quoting  a  verbal  statement  then  re- 
cently made  by  the  Hon.  Samuel  Dexter. 


30  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1758. 

The  expedition  against  Louisburg,  which  was  mainly 
planned  by  Governor  Shirley,  had  contributed  greatly  to 
his  popularity ;  but  towards  the  close  of  his  administration, 
the  failure  of  the  expeditions  of  1755,  which  was  perhaps 
unjustly  charged  upon  him,  produced  a  considerable  revul- 
sion in  public  sentiment,  especially  after  his  appointment  as 
"  Commander-in-chief  of  all  his  Majesty's  forces  in  Amer- 
ica. "  For  some  time,  during  the  term  of  Governor  Shirley, 
Adams  wrote  against  the  dangerous  tendencies  of  such  an 
extension  of  military  force  in  the  Colonies.  Thacher  says : 
"Mr.  Adams,  however,  was  opposed  to  the  union  of  so 
great  a  degree  of  civil  and  military  power  as  was  intrusted 
to  that  gentleman,  and  endeavored  to  awaken  his  country- 
men to  a  sense  of  danger,  though  at  a  distance."*  The 
measures  of  Governor  Shirley  were  criticised  and  assailed 
in  the  public  press,  particularly  in  1756,  during  his  at- 
tempts to  procure  men  and  money  from  the  Colony  for  the 
proposed  expedition  against  the  French  at  Crown  Point. 
The  enterprise  met  with  little  favor  at  that  time,  owing  to 
the  belief  that  it  would  require  great  expense,  and  that  an 
attack  upon  Quebec,  aided  by  the  British  fleet,  would  be 
preferable.  That  Adams  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the 
press  from  1750  to  1764,  is  indisputable.  There  is  ample 
contemporary  evidence.  \  He  warned  his  countrymen  against 
the  growing  usurpations  of  power  by  the  mother  country, 
and  endeavored  to  keep  the  principles  of  Colonial  rights 
before  the  public!  Some  who  knew  him  refer  to  these  pro- 
ductions with  admiration  of  their  ability  and  objects.  A 
contributor  to  the  Polyanthus  alludes  to  Samuel  Adams 
at  this  time  as  one  among  that  eminent  band  of  patriots 
who  wrote  in  defence  of  their  country.!  At  the  time  of 
Adams's  death,  Thacher  referred  to  the  few  distinguished 
characters  of  the  ante-Revolutionary  period  then  surviving, 
"  who  spoke  with  the  highest  respect  of  his  wit,  ingenuity, 

*  Thacher's  Funeral  Discourse. 

t  Polyanthus,  III.  74.     Boston,  1806. 


1758.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  31 

and  profound  argument,"  in  his  public  writings  during 
Governor  Shirley's  administration.  Hutchinson  says,  "  He 
was  for  near  twenty  years  a  writer  against  government  in 
the  public  newspaper s." 

John  Adams,  at  this  time  an  obscure  young  man  in  a 
country  village,  remembered  in  after  years  the  reputation 
of  his  kinsman  as  a  powerful  agent  in  Colonial  politics 
long  before  the  causes  of  the  Revolution  began  to  be  felt. 
More  than  once,  both  in  his  diary  before  the  war,  and 
in  his  letters  in  the  next  century,  he  refers  to  this. 

"The  talents,"  he  says,  "of  that  great  man  were  of  the  most 
exalted,  though  not  of  the  most  showy  kind.  His  love  of  country, 
his  exertions  in  her  service  through  a  long  course  of  years,  through 
the  administrations  of  Governors  Shirley,  Pownall,  Bernard, 
Hutchinson,  and  Gage,  under  the  royal  government,  and  through 
the  whole  of  the  subsequent  Revolution,  —  and  always  in  support  of 
the  same  principles,  —  his  inflexible  integrity,  his  disinterestedness, 
his  invariable  resolution,  his  sagacity,  his  patience,  perseverance,  and 
pure  public  virtue,  were  never  exceeded  by  any  man  in  America."  * 

Samuel  Adams  was  friendly  to  Governor  Pownall,  who 
succeeded  Shirley  in  1756,  and  who  entertained  a  greater 
respect  for  popular  rights  than  his  predecessor.  Pownall, 
who  about  this  time  predicted  the  nearness  of  American 
independence,  was  the  firm  advocate  of  the  Colonies. 
When  he  left  for  England,  in  1760,  having  been  suc- 
ceeded by  Bernard,  the  inhabitants  unanimously  voted  him 
an  address,  acknowledging  the  happy  influence  of  his  ad- 
ministration, which  had  extended  to  every  branch  of  the 
public  interest,  and  had  been  too  sensibly  felt  by  the 
merchants  to  allow  them  to  part  with  his  Excellency  with- 
out the  most  particular  acknowledgment  of  gratitude  and 
respect. 

As  early  as  during  Shirley's  administration,  Samuel  Ad- 
ams had  undoubtedly  pondered  over  the  subject  of  a  future 
separation  of  the  American  Colonies  from  the  mother  coun- 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  I.  673. 


32  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1758. 

try.  His  subsequent  career  showed  that  the  scheme  was 
no  new  one  with  him,  and  had  not  been  suggested  by  the 
immediate  events  causing  the  outbreak  of  hostilities.  His 
native  sagacity  foresaw  the  great  issue ;  but  he  knew  how 
to  guide  the  circumstances  of  the  hour  so  that  the  crisis 
should  not  be  injudiciously  precipitated  upon  his  country- 
men before  the  appointed  time.  The  inevitable  result  of 
the  French  war  in  developing  the  strength  of  the  Colonies 
and  establishing  confidence  in  their  own  resources,  was 
leading  to  a  determination  on  the  part  of  the  home  govern- 
ment to  bring  them  under  closer  subjection.  Any  such 
infringement  on  their  charter  rights  and  privileges  could 
only  arouse  opposition,  and  a  conflict  must  necessarily  en- 
sue. Governor  Shirley  had,  perhaps,  recommended  tax- 
ation of  the  Colonies,  and  Minot  alludes  to  a  report  that 
he  had  disclosed  to  a  leading  character  in  America  the 
ministerial  plan  for  taxing  that  country.*  Massachusetts, 
in  1755,  was  informed  of  the  resolution  in  Parliament  to 
raise  funds  for  American  affairs  by  a  stamp  duty,  and  a 
duty  on  products  of  the  West  Indies  imported  into  the 
Continental  Colonies;  and  her  agent  in  London  was  in- 
structed "to  oppose  everything  that  should  have  the  re- 
motest tendency  to  raise  a  revenue  in  the  Plantations  for 
any  public  uses  or  services  of  government."  The  project 
of  Colonial  taxation  was  freely  discussed  and  defended  by 
the  British  press,  and  that  the  act  might  be  enforced  when 
passed,  a  rule  was  laid  down  by  an  Order  in  Council,  that 
troops  might  be  kept  in  the  Colonies  and  quartered  upon 
the  people  without  the  consent  of  the  several  Assemblies. 
/  Massachusetts,  ever  watchful  of  her  liberties,  used  every 
/exertion  of  remonstrance  against  the  threatened  evils ;  and 
^wise  men  foresaw  the  gathering  storm.  Samuel  Adams 
was  most  active  in  preparing  his  countrymen  for  the  crisis. 
John  Adams  knew  and  had  felt  the  power  of  those  efforts. 
Writing  to  a  Mend  in  1819,  he  says :  — 

*  Minot's  History,  I.  296. 


1758.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  33 

"Samuel  Adams,  to  my  certain  knowledge,  from  1758  to  1775, 
that  is  for  seventeen  years,  made  it  his  constant  rule  to  watch  the 
rise  of  every  brilliant  genius,  to  seek  his  acquaintance,  to  court  his 
friendship,  to  cultivate  his  natural  feelings  in  favor  of  his  native 
country,  to  warn  him  against  the  hostile  designs  of  Great  Britain, 
and  to  fix  his  affections  and  reflections  on  the  side  of  his  native 
country.  I  could  enumerate  a  list,  but  I  will  confine  myself  to  a 
few.  John  Hancock,  afterwards  President  of  the  Congress  and 
Governor  of  the  State ;  Dr.  Joseph  Warren,  afterwards  Major- Gen- 
eral of  the  militia  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  martyr  of  Bunker's 
Hill ;  Benjamin  Church,  the  poet  and  the  orator,  once  a  pretended 
if  not  a  real  patriot,  but  afterwards  a  monument  of  the  frailty  of 
human  nature ;  Josiah  Quincy,  the  Boston  Cicero,  the  great  orator 
in  the  body  meetings,  the  author  of  the  Observations  on  the  Boston 
Port  Bill  and  of  many  publications  in  the  newspapers."  * 

Instances  of  his  unwearying  zeal  in  these  early  stages  of 
the  Revolutionary  era  could  be  multiplied.  Beyond  the 
Atlantic  it  was  well  known.  Mr.  Adolphus,  in  the  second 
volume  of  his  History  of  England,  says :  — 

"  Samuel  Adams,  a  distinguished  leader  of  the  American  counsels, 
noted  for  subtlety,  perseverance,  and  inflexibility,  boasted  in  all 
companies  that  he  had  toiled  twenty  years  to  accomplish  the  measure 

*  Correspondence,  X.  364.  —  To  this  list  John  Adams  might  with  propriety 
have  added  his  own  name.  He  was  thirteen  years  the  junior  of  his  kinsman, 
by  whom  his  genius  was  first  exhibited  in  a  fair  field.  The  young  lawyer  was 
first  made  prominent  in  1765,  when  his  cousin,  as  chairman  of  the  town  meet- 
ing in  December  in  relation  to  the  Stamp  Act,  obtained  his  nomination  as  one 
of  the  three  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  town  before  the  Governor  and  Council. 
While  in  Boston,  he  was  introduced  by  Samuel  Adams  to  the  political  club,  and 
on  becoming  a  resident  there,  he  frequently  turned  aside  from  his  profession  to 
aid  in  the  cause.  A  few  days  after  his  nomination  as  above  stated,  he  makes 
the  following  record  in  his  diary :  "  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  told  me  he  was  glad 
I  was  nominated  for  several  reasons :  first,  because  he  hoped  that  such  an  in- 
stance of  respect  from  the  town  of  Boston  would  make  an  impression  on  my 
mind,  and  secure  my  friendship  to  the  town  from  gratitude ;  secondly,  he  was 
in  hopes  such  distinction  would  be  of  service  to  my  business  and  interest; 
thirdly,  he  hoped  that  Braintree,  finding  the  eyes  of  Boston  fixed  upon  me, 
would  fix  theirs  on  me  too  in  May.  His  hopes  in  the  two  first  particulars 
may  be  well  grounded,  but  I  am  not  sure  in  the  third." 
vol   i.  3 


X 


34  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1763. 

of  independence.  During  that  time  he  had  carried  his  art  and  in- 
dustry so  far  as  to  reach  every  rising  genius  in  the  New  England 
seminaries,  employed  his  utmost  abilities  to  fix  in  their  minds  the 
principles  of  American  independency,  and  now  triumphed  in  his 
success." 

A  learned  commentator  on  this  authority,  who  thoroughly 
understood  the  character  of  Samuel  Adams,  asserted  that 
he  was  "  no  boaster,  but  a  polite  gentleman  of  modest  car- 
riage. " 

His  reputation  as  a  political  manager  was  acquired  at 
this  epoch,  and  it  was  now  that  he  laid  the  foundation  of 
the  public  confidence  and  esteem  which  introduced  him  to 
those  positions  where  his  talents  and  abilities  were  largely 
enjoyed  by  his  country.  In  matters  of  public  interest  he 
was  always  prominent  in  deliberation  and  debate.  Indeed, 
it  would  be  inconsistent  with  probability  to  suppose  that 
with  his  entrance  into  the  Legislature  in  1765  began  the 
leadership  he  then  exercised,  or  that  his  agency  in  conduct- 
ing the  affairs  of  the  town  commenced  at  that  date.  The 
historian  Bradford,  writing  from  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  him,  says  "  he  had  great  influence  with  his  fellow- 
townsmen  for  some  years  before  he  went  into  the  General 
Court,  which  was  in  1765. " 

During  the  religious  controversy  on  the  Episcopacy,  in 
which  the  Rev.  Dr.  Apthorp  and  the  celebrated  Dr.  Mayhew 
were  opposed  to  each  other,  Samuel  Adams  is  said  to  have 
written  a  pamphlet  in  which  the  whole  subject  is  considered. 
John  Adams  says,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Niles :  — 

"  To  form  a  judgment  of  this  debate,  I  beg  leave  to  refer  to  a 
view  of  the  whole  printed  at  the  time,  and  written  by  Samuel 
Adams,  though  by  some  very  absurdly  and  erroneously  ascribed  to 
Mr.  Apthorp.  If  I  am  not  greatly  mistaken,  it  will  be  found  a 
model  of  candor,  sagacity,  and  impartiality,  and  close,  correct  rea- 
soning." * 

*  There  are  reasons  for  believing  that  Samuel  Adams  was  not  the  author  of 
this  pamphlet,  and  that  he  probably  did  not  enter  into  the  controversy  at  any 


1763.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  35 

Adams  does  not  appear  to  have  aspired  to  any  public  office 
until  1763,  when  he  became  one  of  the  tax  collectors.  The 
same  year,  in  May,  his  name  appears  on  the  town  records, 
as  one  of  the  selectmen  who  reported  on  the  visitation  of 
schools.  In  the  prosecution  of  his  duties,  he  was  brought 
into  frequent  communication  with  all  classes  of  his  fellow- 
time.  John  Adams,  in  the  above  brief  allusion  (Works,  X.  288),  is  the  only- 
authority  for  attributing  it  to  his  kinsman.  Careful  but  as  yet  unsuccessful 
search  has  been  made  for  such  a  review  by  Samuel  Adams,  not  only  in  public 
libraries  and  among  the  most  complete  collections  of  pamphlets  in  America,  but 
also  in  the  British  Museum,  the  Oxford  libraries,  and  that  of  the  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  where  everything  relating  to  the  Society  has  been 
zealously  gathered  for  more  than  a  century. 

The  author  lately  applied  to  Mr.  John  Langdon  Sibley,  the  Librarian  of  Har- 
vard College,  to  renew  the  search  which  had  been  made  in  that  library  several 
years  before.  Mr.  Sibley  very  kindly  undertook  the  task  in  person,  and  has 
traced  the  subject  to  what  seems  to  be  a  satisfactory  conclusion.  In  the  Cat- 
alogue of  the  Library,  the  work  is  thus  noted  :  "  Adams,  Samuel.  On  the 
Conduct  of  the  Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel.  8vo.  Lond.  1765."  As 
such  a  pamphlet  by  Samuel  Adams  had  never  been  seen  by  any  of  the  pres- 
ent generation,  the  inference  was,  either  that  it  had  long  since  been  taken 
from  the  library  and  never  returned,  or  that  the  production  of  some  other 
person  had  been  attributed  to  him.  The  original  manuscript  from  which 
the  Catalogue  was  printed  was  now  hunted  up ;  and  here  was  found,  marked 
by  the  compiler,  a  query  as  to  the  probable  author,  —  Apthorp  or  Adams. 
This  manuscript  expressly  refers  to  Volume  II.  of  the  "  Mayhew  Controversy," 
consisting  of  a  bound  collection  of  pamphlets  on  this  subject,  presented  to  the 
library  by  Thomas  Hollis  about  the  year  1768.  In  this  collection,  the  pam- 
phlet in  question  is  found.  It  is  an  octavo,  printed  in  London  in  1765,  and 
entitled,  "A  Review  of  Dr.  Mayhew's  Remarks  on  the  Answer  to  his  Ob- 
servations on  the  Charter  and  Conduct  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts.  By  East  Apthorp,  M.  A."  That  this  is  the  work 
to  which  the  compiler  of  the  Catalogue  had  reference  is  shown  by  his  pencil 
notes  specifying  the  volume  and  page  in  HolhYs  collection  above  mentioned. 
But  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  title-page  shows  Apthorp  to  have  been 
the  author,  the  compiler  plainly  was  in  doubt  as  to  crediting  it  to  him.  This 
hesitancy  was  apparently  owing  to  some  statement  he  had  heard,  ascribing  it 
to  Samuel  Adams,  and  which  finally  induced  him  to  so  place  it  in  the  Cata- 
logue. That  authority  may  have  been  John  Adams,  who  often  visited  the  Li- 
brary and  took  great  interest  in  its  welfare,  and  who  probably  repeated  there 
the  substance  of  what  has  been  above  quoted,  written  in  1818,  —  more  than 
half  a  century  after  the  time  of  the  controversy,  and  when  the  writer  had  not 
the  pamphlet  before  him,  and  trusted  to  memory  in  making  the  assertion.    Had 


86  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1763. 

townsmen,  and  passed  much  of  his  time  in  political  con- 
verse with  them.  So  prominent  did  he  become  by  his  de- 
cided opinions,  which  then  became  widely  disseminated, 
that  the  royalists  derisively  styled  him,  in  allusion  to  his 
•  office,  "  Samuel  the  Publican. "  His  wisdom,  integrity, 
"^and  political  knowledge  procured  him  the  respect  and  con- 
fidence of  the  people.  His  counsel  was  frequently  asked, 
and  freely  given  to  all,  on  questions  of  difficulty  personally 
interesting  to  them ;  and  it  has  come  direct  from  his  daugh- 
ter, that  controversies  among  his  neighbors  were  often  si- 
lenced by  submitting  the  subjects  in  dispute  to  his  decision, 
from  which  appeals  were  seldom  made.  The  office  of  tax 
collector  was  at  that  time  generally  given  to  gentlemen 
who  had  seen  better  days.  Adams  had  by  this  time  little 
remaining  beyond  the  homestead  for  the  protection  of  which 
from  seizure  he  had  battled  for  years  past.  Eliot,  who  was 
personally  acquainted  with  him,  and  familiar  with  the  events 
of  his  life,  says  that  at  this  period  he  was  so  reduced  that 
"  he  received  assistance  from  his  private  friends,  and  from 
many  others  who  knew  him  only  as  a  spirited  partisan  in 
the  cause  of  liberty,"  *  and  that  he  was  then  "  one  of  the 
best  writers  in  the  newspapers." 

Mr.  Adams  appears  to  have  been  unsuccessful  in  his  of- 

he  possessed  the  work,  he  could  not  have  fallen  into  the  error,  as  the  title-page 
would  have  set  at  rest  any  question  of  authorship. 

The  evidences  against  its  having  been  the  work  of  Samuel  Adams,  and  that 
he  never  employed  his  pen  at  all  in  the  controversy,  may  be  thus  summed  up. 
1 .  The  pamphlet  leans  to  the  Episcopal  side  of  the  argument,  and  opposes  Dr. 
Mayhew,  which  Samuel  Adams  certainly  would  not  have  done.  2.  The  pam- 
phlet referred  to  in  the  Catalogue  was  published  in  London,  but  not  as  the  re- 
print of  a  Boston  edition.  Had  Samuel  Adams  been  its  author,  it  would  have 
appeared  first  in  Boston.  3.  It  bears  no  resemblance  in  style  to  the  composi- 
tions of  Samuel  Adams.  4.  Apthorp  went  to  England  in  1764,  and  never  re- 
turned to  America.  Being  there  when  the  pamphlet  was  printed,  he  would 
not  have  allowed  his  own  name  to  appear  as  the  author  of  another's  work.  5. 
No  other  pamphlet  or  newspaper  publication  resembling  the  one  in  question  has 
been  found  bearing  the  title  indicated,  or  having  the  style  of  Samuel  Adams, 
which  no  one  familiar  with  his  writings  could  ever  mistake. 

*  Biographical  Dictionary.     1809. 


1764.]  LIFE. OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  37 

ficial  duties,  owing  partly  to  his  humane  disposition,  which 
prevented  him  from  pressing  delinquents,  but_^rdcu]aily„io 
the  embarrassed  financial  condition  of  the  Province,  which 
rendered  it  impossible  for  many  to  meet  the  public  demands. 
The  general  distress  was  also  increased  by  the  alarming  spread 
of  the  small-pox  in  the  winter  and  spring  of  1764,  causing 
many  of  the  inhabitants  to  fly  the  town.  Numbers  of  mer- 
chants and  traders  removed  their  goods  into  the  country, 
and  business  for  some  months  was  paralyzed.  The  several 
tax  collectors  were  thus  thrown  in  arrears,  and  with  no 
prospect  of  being  able  to  square  their  accounts.  At  the  elec- 
tion in  March,  1764,  Mr.  Adams  declined  serving  again,  al- 
though elected  by  a  large  majority,  but  he  was  finally  induced 
to  continue  in  office,  and  during  this  year  he  attempted  to 
collect  the  arrearages  in  his  district,  but  the  experiment 
only  involved  him  deeper,  and  the  uncollected  amount  was 
increased.  In  the  following  year  (1765),  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  examine  into  the  state  of  the  treasury,  who 
reported  that  the  several  collectors  of  taxes  appeared  by  the 
Treasurer's  books  to  be  indebted  to  the  town  ninety-eight 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  pounds,  divided  between  John 
Ruddock,  Samuel  Adams,  Jonathan  Payson,  John  Grant, 
and  Thomas  Satter.  What  measures  the  others  took  to  ar- 
range their  difficulties  is  not  known.  Mr.  Adams  pub- 
lished the  following  notice  :  — 

"  Those  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  town  who  are  indebted  to  the 
subscriber  for  Ifieir  taxes  for  any  year  past  are  desired  forthwith 
to  discharge  them,  or  they  may  depend  upon  the  steps  of  the  law 
being  taken,  without  distinction  of  persons ;  the  present  circum- 
stances of  the  town  being  such  as  to  make  any  further  indulgence 
utterly  inconsistent  with  the  duty  of  their 

"  Humble  servant, 

"Samuel  Adams." * 

At  the  next  election  all  the  collectors  were  re-elected,  but 
unanimously  refused  to  serve.f    Four  days  later,  Messrs. 

*  Boston  Gazette,  20th  May,  1765.  t  Boston  Town  Records. 


38  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

Payson  and  Satter  accepted;  but  Mr.  Adams  steadily 
and  properly  declined  to  sacrifice  his  peace  of  mind  to  the 
necessities  of  the  public.  Efforts  were  made  by  his  ene- 
mies for  three  or  four  years  afterwards  to  hold  him,  and 
two  others  of  the  five  collectors,  responsible  for  the  uncol- 
lected sums.  The  subject  was  brought  up  at  town  meet- 
ings ;  and  in  March,  1768,  an  attempt,  by  a  body  of  Tories, 
who  had  evidently  assembled  for  the  purpose  of  crushing 
Adams,  was  voted  down  "  by  a  great  majority.' '  At  a  sub- 
sequent town  meeting,  the  people  refused  to  hear  the  list 
of  uncollected  taxes  read,  and,  by  "  a  very  great  major- 
ity," he  was  finally  discharged  from  all  liability.*  The 
Tories,  glad  of  any  pretext  on  which  to  malign  the  patriot, 
rung  the  changes  on  this  tax-collecting  affair  at  every  op- 
portunity, distorting  the  facts,  and  attempting  to  blacken 
his  character;  but  the  calumny  only  recoiled  upon  them- 
selves. Hutchinson,  as  it  afterwards  appeared,  did  not  fail 
to  add  this  to  his  other  malignant  representations  in  his 
secret  letters  to  the  government  in  England,  and  in  his  His- 
tory of  Massachusetts  he  gravely  calls  it  a  "  defalcation."  f 

*  Boston  Town  Records. 

t  Examination  of  every  statute  upon  the  subject,  from  the  earliest  times 
under  the  Province  Charter  of  1692  down  to.  1785,  will  show  that  no 
sureties  were  ever  required  of  tax  collectors  by  any  law  of  the  Province 
during  that  period.  It  is  quite  certain  that  neither  Samuel  Adams  nor  any 
other  collector  of  taxes  of  his  time,  either  in  Boston  or  in  any  other  town 
of  the  Province,  ever  gave  sureties  or  surety  for  the  performance  of  the  duty 
of  collector.  Bonds  by  collectors  of  taxes,  with  sureties,  are  of  much  later  ori- 
gin. The  stringent  provisions  of  law  during  that  period  to  urge  collectors  of 
taxes  up  to  a  punctual  and  vigorous  execution  of  their  duties,  by  necessary  im- 
plication, show  that  they  had  no  sureties ;  for,  besides  liability  to  suit  and  pen- 
alties attached,  &c,  an  act  was  passed  at  the  November  session,  1736,  of  the 
General  Court,  that  if  collectors  of  town  taxes  neglected  to  collect  the  taxes 
committed  to  them  for  collection,  and  pay  the  same  in  to  the  town  treasurer, 
within  one  month  after  the  time  provided  in  and  by  the  warrant  to  them  di- 
rected for  the  purpose,  the  town  treasurer  was  empowered  to  issue  a  warrant  to 
the  sheriff  of  the  county,  who  was  empowered  and  directed  thereby  to  cause 
the  sum  not  paid  in  by  the  collector  to  be  levied  by  distress  and  sale  of  the 
real  and  personal  estate  of  the  collector. 

That  law  was  revived  and  continued  from  time  to  time,  and  kept  always  in 


1760.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  39 

In  August,  1760,  Governor  Pownall  was  succeeded  by 
Francis  Bernard.  The  new  official  was  received  with  due 
parade,  and,  being  met  at  Dedham  by  Lieutenant-Governor 
Hutchinson,  was  escorted  to  the  Province  House,  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Colonial  Governors.  Bernard  was  educated 
at  Oxford,  and  bred  to  the  law.     He  had  been  two  years 

force  until  June  23d,  1770.  The  idea  of  a  surety  by  a  collector  of  taxes  is  not 
even  hinted  at  by  any  statute  until  long  after  the  year  1785. 

Under  the  statutes  prior  to  1785,  every  person  elected  as  collector  of  taxes 
was  bound  under  the  penalty  of  a  fine  to  take  the  prescribed  oath  and  perform 
the  duties  of  the  office,  all  the  excuse  being  that  he  was  not  obliged  to  serve 
but  one  year  in  seven. 

There  was  always  great  difficulty  in  collecting  taxes  in  Provincial  times, 
owing  to  the  scarcity  of  money  among  the  people.  But  in  the  year  1763 
there  was  unusual  difficulty  in  Boston.  Thus  at  the  adjourned  session  of  the 
General  Court,  which  assembled  on  the  27th  day  of  December,  1763,  the  Se- 
lectmen of  Boston  petitioned  the  General  Court  to  provide  a  remedy  for  their 
collectors  of  taxes  in  particular,  on  account  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  law 
for  Boston,  as  it  then  stood.  On  the  next  day  (Dec.  28th,  1763),  a  bill  was 
read  the  first  time,  entitled,  "  An  Act  to  enable  the  Collectors  of  Taxes  in  the  Town 
of  Boston  to  sue  for  and  recover  the  Rates  and  Taxes  given  them  to  collect  in  certain 
Cases:' 

The  preamble  of  the  statute,  following  the  title,  is  in  these  words,  viz. :  — 

"  Whereas,  notwithstanding  the  provision  already  made  by  the  laws  of 
this  Province  respecting  constables  and  collectors  of  taxes,  it  is  represented 
that  in  many  cases  there- may  be  a  failure,  and  the  town  of  Boston  have 
humbly  desired   that  remedy  may  be  provided  for  their  collectors  in  those 


The  act  then  goes  on  to  provide,  in  Sect.  1,  that  when  any  person  duly 
taxed  in  Boston  had  absconded,  or  should  abscond,  not  having  paid  his  taxes, 
and  had  concealed  his  goods  and  estate,  the  collectors  of  Boston  should  have 
like  remedy  against  the  agents,  factors,  or  trustees  of  such  absconding  person, 
to  recover  the  taxes  assessed  against  such  absconding  person,  as  by  law  cred- 
itors have  for  the  recovery  of  their  debts. 

The  second  section  provides  that  where  any  person  taxed  in  Boston  had 
died  before  paying  his  tax,  or  removed  to  some  other  town,  or  where  any 
feme  sole  duly  taxed  had  married  before  paying  her  tax,  or  where  the  collectors 
(the  time  for  them  to  pay  in  having  elapsed)  had  paid  the  whole  sum  com- 
mitted to  them  to  collect,  —  in  all  such  cases,  the  collectors  of  Boston  might 
sue  the  person  so  assessed,  and  have  the  like  remedy  as  other  creditors  have 
for  recovering  their  proper  debts. 

This  act  was  read  a  second  and  third  time  on  the  29th  day  of  December, 


40  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1760. 

Governor  of  New  Jersey  when  transferred  to  Massachusetts. 
He  commenced  his  administration  under  favorable  auspices, 
but  he  failed  to  appreciate  or  understand  the  people  among 
whom  his  lot  had  been  cast;  and  his  name,  as  that  of  a 
secret  enemy  to  the  liberties  of  America,  was  ever  after 
detested  by  the  patriots.  On  his  arrival,  the  Assembly 
granted  him  a  liberal  salary  of  thirteen  hundred  pounds 

1763,  and  passed  to  be  engrossed,  and  sent  up  to  the  Council  Board  for  concur- 
rence ;  and  in  the  third  section,  it  was  provided  that  the  act  should  be  in  force 
from  and  after  the  first  day  of  February,  in  the  year  1764,  viz.  for  two  years 
and  two  months  only. 

Those  acquainted  with  political  and  party  strife,  and  the  relation  in  which 
Samuel  Adams  and  Governor  Hutchinson  stood  to  each  other,  will  not  attach 
importance  to  what  the  latter  said  of  the  former. 

That  in  those  exciting  times  some  complication  may  have  existed  in  the 
accounts  of  the  treasurer  of  Boston  with  Samuel  Adams  and  his  co-collectors 
is  very  probable.  The  confusion  of  the  times  for  a  considerable  period  pre- 
ceding the  Revolutionary  war,  and  during  that  war,  and  for  some  time  after, 
probably  prevented  a  formal  auditing  of  those  accounts  until  it  became  im- 
possible. 

Against  the  attack  upon  Samuel  Adams  in  relation  to  the  matter  of  the 
collection  of  taxes,  we  may  safely  invoke  the  great  weight  of  his  personal 
character.  What  is  character  good  for,  unless  it  protects  the  reputation  of  a 
person  in  a  single  case  of  accusation  without  proof  in  a  long  lifetime  ? 

Against  that  accusation  it  is  sufficient  that  the  town  of  Boston  and  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  the  Province  testified,  contemporaneously  in  the 
strongest  manner.  Would  the  town  of  Boston,  in  September,  1765,  have 
elected  a  defaulting  collector  to  fill  the  vacancy  in  their  representation  in  the 
Legislature,  occasioned  by  the  death  of  the  famous  Oxenbridge  Thacher  ? 
Would  our  House  of  Representatives,  on  the  third  day  after  his  becoming  a 
member,  have  made  a  defaulting  collector  the  chairman  of  the  committee  to 
present  to  Governor  Bernard  the  answer  to  his  message  on  the  subject  of  the 
stamped  paper  that  had  just  then  arrived  in  the  Province  !  Does  that  answer, 
most  palpably  drafted  by  "  the  last  of  the  Puritans,"  savor  of  the  mind  of  a  de- 
faulting collector'?  This  subject  may  be  dismissed  by  putting  in  evidence 
against  the  aspersion  by  Hutchinson  the  unanimous  declaration  of  our  General 
Court,  both  House  and  Council  Board,  on  the  seventh  day  of  November,  1776, 
in  the  preamble  to  the  act  changing  the  name  of  the  town  then  called 
Hutchinson  to  what  it  is  now,  —  Barre. 

That  act  cannot  be  safely  abridged ;  and  as  it  disposes  of  the  character  of 
Hutchinson  as  a  witness  against  so  great  a  political  opponent  as  Samuel 
Adams,  it  is  copied  entire. 


1760.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  41 

per  annum,  and  presented  him  with  the  island  of  Mount 
Desert  on  the  coast  of  Maine.  This  gratified  his  avarice, 
but  he  remained  a  hidden  foe  to  the  Province.  When  the 
troubles  with  the  mother  country  commenced,  he  was  un- 
wearied in  his  efforts  for  the  subversion  of  the  Colonial 
charter,  though  he  constantly  professed  the  contrary.  His 
letters  subsequently  revealed  that  he  was  a  persistent  advo- 

*  An  Act  for  discontinuing  the  name  of  a  Town  in  the,  County  of  Worcester,  lately 
incorporated  by  the  name  of  Hutchinson,  and  calling  the  same  Barre. 

"  Whereas  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  of  Hutchinson  have  by  their  petition 
represented  to  this  Court  that  in  June,  1774,  when  the  said  town  was  incorpo- 
rated, General  Gage,  the  then  Governor,  gave  it  the  name  of  Hutchinson,  in 
honor  to,  and  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of,  Thomas  Hutchinson,  his  immediate 
predecessor  in  the  chair  of  government,  whom  they  justly  style  the  well- 
known  enemy  of  the  natural  and  stipulated  rights  of  America ;  and  that,  at  a 
town  meeting  notified  for  that  purpose,  they  voted  unanimously  to  petition,  and 
accordingly  have  petitioned,  the  General  Court,  that  the  name  of  the  said  town 
might  be  altered,  and  that  it  might  no  longer  bear  the  disgraceful  name  of 
Hutchinson ;  — 

"  And  whereas  there  is  a  moral  fitness  that  traitors  and  parricides,  especially 
such  as  have  remarkably  distinguished  themselves  in  that  odious  character, 
and  have  long  labored  to  deprive  their  native  country  of  its  most  valuable 
rights  and  privileges,  and  to  destroy  every  Constitutional  guard  against  the 
evils  of  an  all-enslaving  despotism,  should  be  held  up  to  public  view  in  their 
true  characters,  to  be  execrated  by  mankind,  and  that  there  should  remain 
no  other  memorials  of  them  than  such  as  will  transmit  their  names  with  in- 
famy to  posterity;  — 

"  And  whereas  the  said  Thomas  Hutchinson,  contrary  to  every  obligation  of 
duty  and  gratitude  to  this  his  native  country,  which  raised  him  from  private 
life  to  the  highest  and  most  lucrative  offices  in  the  government,  has  acted 
towards  her  the  part  of  a  traitor  and  parricide,  as  above  described,  which  has 
been  clearly  manifested  to  the  world  by  his  letters  lately  published ;  and  by  his 
having  thus  acted,  it  has  become  fit  and  just  that  every  honorable  memorial  of 
him  should  be  obliterated  and  cease :  —  therefore, 

"  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Council  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  State  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  in  General  Court  assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
same,  that  the  land  lying  in  the  County  of  Worcester,  formerly  called  Rutland 
District,  and  in  June,  1774,  incorporated  into  a  town  by  the  name  of  Hutch- 
inson, shall  no  more  bear  that  name,  but  henceforth  shall  be  called  and  known 
Dy  the  name  of  Barre,  the  aforesaid  incorporating  act  notwithstanding.  And 
all  officers  in  the  said  town  shall  hold  and  exercise  their  offices  respectively,  in 
the  same  manner  as  they  would  have  done  had  not  the  name  of  the  said  town 
been  altered." 


42  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1760. 

cate  for  bringing  troops  to  Boston.  He  was  vain,  fretful, 
timid,  passionate,  easily  offended,  and  possessed  of  little 
dignity  of  character.  The  officers  of  the  army  contemned 
him  for  his  cowardice  and  duplicity,  and  the  people  hated 
and  despised  him. 


CHAPTER   II. 

Schemes  to  tax  the  Colonies.  —  Writs  of  Assistance.  —  Eloquence  of  James 

Otis The  Sugar  Act.  —  Efforts  to  procure  its  Repeal.  —  Adams  draughts 

the  Boston  Instructions  in  1764.  —  The  Right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the 
Colonies  first  publicly  denied ;  and  a  general  Union  of  the  Colonies  recom- 
mended. —  Character  and  Influence  of  Adams.  —  His  Second  Marriage.  — 
His  Opinions  on  the  Taxation  Question.  —  The  Legislature  follow  the 
Boston  Instructions.  —  The  Stamp  Act.  —  Renewed  Parliamentary  Debates. 

—  Noble  Oratory  of  Colonel  Barre.  —  Reception  of  the  News  in  Boston. 

—  Public  Indignation  and  Violence.  —  Adams  drafts  the  Boston  Instruc- 
tions in  1765.  —  The  New  York  Congress. 

I  With  the  termination  of  the  French  war  arrived  the 
|  eventful  period  when  the  Stamp  duty,  by  which  the  British 
/  government  proposed  to  raise  a  revenue  from  the  Colonies 
I  without  their  having  a  representation  in  Parliament,  aroused 
the  Americans  from  the  condition  of  peaceful  and  generally 
contented  subjects  to  exasperated  assertors  of  the  rights 
sacredly  guaranteed  by  charter.  The  freedom  and  prerog- 
ative parties,  including  on  either  side  the  ablest  men  in 
,  Massachusetts,  were  arrayed  on  the  issues  of  the  relation 
between  the  Colonies  and  Great  Britain.  The  first  notable 
question  was  on  the  validity  of  the  writs  of  assistance,  which 
enabled  officers  of  the  customs  to  forcibly  enter  dwellings 
and  stores  to  search  for  any  contraband  goods  supposed 
to  be  concealed  there.  A  petition  being  sent  by  an  officer 
to  the  Superior  Court  for  one  of  these  writs,  legal  excep- 
tions were  taken,  and  James  Otis,  a  man  who  thenceforth 
took  a  leading  part  in  the  support  of  the  liberties  of  his 
country,  appeared  for  the  Bostonians  against  Gridley,  the 
King's  Attorney.  Oxenbridge  Thacher  was  also  engaged 
for  the  people,  and  preceded  Otis  with  an  argument  to  prove 
that  the  practice  of  the  Exchequer  was  not  good  ground 


44  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1758-63. 

for  that  court,  and  that  the  required  seizures  were  wanton 
exercises  of  power.  James  Otis  electrified  his  audience  by 
a  speech,  denouncing  the  writs  as  instruments  of  slavery  on 
the  one  hand,  and  villany  on  the  other.  The  orator  spoke 
for  four  hours,  and  was  remembered  by  John  Adams  as  "  a 
flame  of  fire."  "  The  child  Independence,"  he  says,  "  was 
then  and  there  born.  Every  man  of  an  immense  crowded 
audience  appeared  to  me  to  go  away  as  I  did,  ready  to  take 
up  arms  against  writs  of  assistance." 

The  speech  of  Otis  spurred  the  people  of  Boston  to  the 
first  acts  of  resistance ;  but  as  yet  their  unwavering  loyalty 
to  the  mother  country  remained  intact.  There  were  few  in- 
deed who  ventured  to  conjecture  such  a  state  of  affairs  as 
should  lead  to  a  separation.  During  thirty  years,  occasional 
popular  commotions,  such  as  followed  the  writs  of  assistance, 
had  occurred,  and  had  subsided  with  the  moving  cause. 
That  the  events  of  1761  indirectly  led  on  to  those  of  the 
Revolution  cannot  be  denied.  The  inhabitants  were  aroused 
by  the  nearness  of  the  danger,  but  the  struggle  did  not 
commence  there.  The  argument  of  Otis,  brilliant,  logical, 
and  flaming,  was  not  the  prologue  of  the  great  drama, 
for  it  did  not  then  begin.  The  American  Revolution  was 
caused  by,  and  opened  with,  the  revenue  acts.  The  direct 
issue  in  that  struggle  was  the  raising  of  a  revenue  from 
the  Colonies  without  their  consent,  and  without  their  being 
represented  in  Parliament.  Independence  was  gained  in 
consequence  of  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  unconditional 
taxation  by  Parliament,  whence  grew  in  regular  sequence 
every  phase  in  the  ten  years  of  controversy  with  the  royal 
governors  preceding  the  war.  It  was  not  until  1765  that 
the  Stamp  Act  passed  and  received  the  royal  assent,  and  the 
Revolution  was  born  with  the  popular  resistance  to  that 
measure  and  the  acts  of  1763. 

In  1763,  the  Colonial  agent  at  London,  Mr.  Mauduit,  noti- 
fied the  Assembly  that  the  act  passed  in  the  sixth  year  of 
George  II.,  for  securing  the  trade  of  the  sugar  Colonies,  would 


1763. 


LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  45 


shortly  expire,  and  would  be  revived  with  alterations  of  a 
more  stringent  nature,  The  news  of  the  projected  Stamp 
Act  was  also  received,  and  the  whole  country  was  alive  with 
apprehension.  Early  in  the  year,  the  House,  through  their 
committee,  instructed  the  agent  to  endeavor  to  procure  the 
repeal  of  the  obnoxious  Sugar  Act,  and  to  exert  himself  to 
prevent  the  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act,  "  or  any  other  impo- 
sitions or  taxes  upon  this  or  the  other  American  Colonies  "; 
and  before  the  adjournment  it  was  proposed  to  choose  an- 
other agent  to  act  in  concert  with  Mr.  Mauduit  in  remon- 
strating with  the  ministry.  Mr.  Hutchinson  received  almost 
the  unanimous  vote,  but  the  House  soon  after  changed  their 
views  of  his  fitness  for  the  office.  This  is  believed  to  have 
turned  him  from  the  position  he  then  held,  to  an  ardent  sup- 
porter of  the  measures  of  the  government ;  and  in  his  manu- 
script correspondence  is  found  a  letter,  written  about  that 
time,  in  which  he  deemed  it  "  a  high  delinquency  towards 
Heaven  if  he  afforded  countenance  to  any  cause  longer  than 
it  was  favored  by  fortune." 

The  first  public  opposition  in  America  to  Parliamentary 
schemes  of  taxation  was  made  in  Massachusetts.  Though 
Virginia  has  always  claimed  that  honor  through  her  illus- 
trious son,  Patrick  Henry,  the  "  alarm  bell "  was  earliest 
rung  in  Boston  by  Samuel  Adams,  who  preceded  the  Vir- 
ginia patriot  a  year.* 

*  See  Grahame's  United  States,  II.  388.  See  also  Arnold's  History  of 
Rhode  Island,  II.  254.  "  The  suggestion  of  a  general  union  for  this  object 
first  emanated  from  the  town  of  Boston.  It  is  contained  in  the  instructions  to 
their  Representatives  at  the  General  Court  in  May,  drawn"  up  by  Samuel  Adams, 
and  adopted  by  that  body  in  a  memorial  prepared  by  James  Otis,  to  be  sent  to 
the  agents  in  England."  Wirt,  in  his  admirable,  but  somewhat  imaginative 
biography  of  Patrick  Henry,  overlooks  this  fact,  which  he  doubtless  would 
have  recorded  had  it  been  brought  to  his  notice.  Patrick  Henry  himself  seems 
to  have  been  ignorant  of  the  decided  stand  taken  by  the  people  of  Boston  a 
year  before  his  celebrated  resolutions  were  written.  Among  his  papers  was 
found  a  copy  of  this  document,  on  the  envelope  of  which  he  had  fondly  in- 
scribed, with  his  own  hand :  "  The  within  resolutions  passed  the  House  of 
Burgesses,  May,  1765.     They  formed  the  first  opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act, 


V 


46  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1764. 

The  spring  elections  of  1764  having  arrived,  a  committee 
in  town  meeting  was  appointed  to  prepare  instructions  by 
which  the  newly  elected  Representatives  were  to  be  guided 
during  the  year's  legislation.  The  committee  chose  Samuel 
Adams,  one  of  their  number,  to  draft  the  report,  which  he 
submitted  to  the  inhabitants  assembled  at  Faneuil  Hall  on 
the  24th  of  May.  The  original  autograph  still  exists  among 
his  papers. 

After  reminding  the  Representatives  that  the  people  had 
delegated  to  them  the  power  of  acting  in  their  public  con 
cerns  in  general,  with  the  right  of  instructing  them  upon 
particular  matters,  he  continues:  — 

*  We,  therefore,  your  constituents,  take  this  opportunity  to  declare 
our  just  expectations  from  you  ; 

■  That  you  will  constantly  use  your  power  and  influence  in  main- 
taining the  invaluable  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Province,  of  which 
this  town  is  so  great  a  part,  as  well  those  rights  which  are  derived 
to  us  by  the  royal  charter,  as  those  which,  being  prior  to,  and  in- 
dependent of  it,  we  hold  essentially  as  free-born  subjects  of  Great 
Britain. 

"  That  you  will  endeavor,  as  far  as  you  will  be  able,  to  preserve 
that  independence  in  the  House  of  Representatives  which  character- 
izes a  free  people,  and  the  want  of  which  may,  in  a  great  measure, 
prevent  the  happy  effects  of  a  free  government;  cultivating,  as  you 
shall  have  opportunity,  that  harmony  and  union  there  which  is  ever 
desirable  to  good  men  when  founded  in  principles  of  virtue  and 
public  spirit;  and  guarding  against  any  undue  weight  which  may 
tend  to  disadjust  the  critical  balance  upon  which  our  happy  Constitu- 
tion and  the  blessings  of  liberty  do  depend. 


and  the  scheme  of  taxing  America  by  the  British  Parliament.  All  the  Colo- 
nies, either  through  fear  or  want  of  opportunity  to  form  an  opposition,  or 
from  influence  of  some  other  kind,  had  remained  silent."  The  instructions  were 
the  signal  which  first  called  for  combined  action  against  an  act  of  tyranny,  the 
legality  of  which  they  were  the  earliest  to  deny.  Bradford,  in  his  History  of 
Massachusetts,  does  not  overlook  the  fact.  He  says  :  "  In  these  patriotic  meas- 
ures to  resist  the  encroachment  of  arbitrary  power,  the  citizens  of  Boston  seem 
to  have  been  the  first.  They  instructed  their  Representatives  in  May,  1764/'* 
See  also  Bancroft,  V.  194  -  200. 


„\ 


\ 


Hi  111  I J 


ii!H 


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iflwif  «4 


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4  ^ 


i  ^  p  <i 


N^ 


1764.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  47 

"As  you  represent  a  town  which  lives  by  its  trade,  we  expect 
that  in  every  particular  manner  you  make  it  the  object  of  your 
attention  to  support  our  commerce  in  all  its  just  rights,  to  vindicate 
it  from  all  unreasonable  impositions,  and  promote  its  prosperity. 
Our  trade  has  for  a  long  time  labored  under  great  discouragements, 
and  it  is  with  the  deepest  concern  we  see  such  further  difficulty 
coming  upon  it  as  will  reduce  it  to  the  lowest  ebb,  if  not  totally 
obstruct  and  ruin  it.  We  cannot  help  expressing  our  surprise  that' 
when  so  early  notice  was  given  by  the  agent  of  the  intentions  of1 
the  ministry  to  burden  us  with  new  taxes,  so  little  regard  was  had 
to  this  most  interesting  matter  that  the  Court  was  not  even  called 
together  to  consult  about  it  till  the  latter  end  of  the  year,  the  con- 
sequence of  which  was  that  instructions  could  not  be  sent  to  the 
agent,  though  solicited  by  him,  till  the  evil  had  got  beyond  an  easy 
remedy.  There  is  no  more  room  for  delay.  We  therefore  expect 
that  you  will  use  your  earliest  endeavors  in  the  General  Assembly 
that  such  methods  may  be  taken  as  will  effectually  prevent  these 
proceedings  against  us.  By  proper  representation,  we  apprehend 
it  may  easily  be  made  to  appear  that  such  severity  will  prove  detri- 
mental to  Great  Britain  itself;  upon  which  account  we  have  reason 
to  hope  that  an  application  even  for  a  repeal  of  the  act,  should  it  be 
already  passed,  will  be  successful.  It  is  the  trade  of  the  Colonies 
that  renders  them  beneficial  to  the  mother  country.  Our  trade  as 
it  is  now,  and  always  has  been  conducted,  centres  in  Great  Britain ; 
and  in  return  for  her  manufactures  affords  her  more  ready  cash,  be- 
yond any  comparison,  than  can  possibly  be  expected  by  the  most 
sanguine  promoters  of  these  most  extraordinary  methods.  We  are, 
in  short,  ultimately  yielding  large  supplies  to  the  revenues  of  the 
mother  country,  while  we  are  laboring  for  a  very  moderate  subsist- 
ence for  ourselves.  But  if  our  trade  is  to  be  curtailed  in  its  most 
profitable  branches,  and  burdens  beyond  all  possible  bearing  are 
levied  upon  that  which  is  suffered  to  remain,  we  shall  be  so  far  from 
being  able  to  take  off  the  manufactures  of  Great  Britain,  that  it 
will  be  scarcely  possible  for  us  to  earn  our  bread. 

"  But  what  still  heightens  our  apprehensions  is,  that  these  unex- 
pected proceedings  may  be  preparatory  to  more  extensive  taxations 
upon  us.  For  if  our  trade  may  be  taxed,  why  not  our  lands? 
Why  not  the  produce  of  our  lands,  and  in  short  everything  we  pos- 
sess or  make  use  of?    This,  we  apprehend,  annihilates  our  charter- 


48  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1764. 

rights  to  govern  and  tax  ourselves.  It  strikes  at  our  British  privi- 
leges, which,  as  we  have  never  forfeited  them,  we  hold  in  common 
with  our  fellow-subjects  who  are  natives  of  Britain.  If  taxes  are 
laid  upon  us  in  any  shape  without  our  having  a  legal  representation 
where  they  are  laid,  are  we  not  reduced  from  the  character  of  sub- 
jects to  the  miserable  state  of  tributary  slaves  ?  [We  claim  Brit- 
ish  rights  not  by  charter  only.  They  belong  to  us  as^well  as  to  -our 
fellow-subjects  in  Great  Britain,  and  we  depend  upon  you  to  main- 
tain and  assert  them.*] 

"  We  therefore  earnestly  recommend  it  to  you  to  use  your  utmost 
endeavors  to  obtain  in  the  General  Assembly  all  necessary  instruc- 
tions to  our  agent  at  this  most  critical  juncture,  that  while  he  is 
setting  forth  the  unshaken  loyalty  of  this  Province  and  this  town, 
its  unrivalled  exertions  in  supporting  his  Majesty's  government  and 
rights  in  this  part  of  his  dominions,  its  acknowledged  dependence 
upon,  and  submission  to  Great  Britain,  and  the  ready  submission  of 
its  merchants  to  all  just  and  necessary  regulations  of  trade,  he  may' 
be  able  in  the  most  humble  and  pressing  manner  to  remonstrate  for 
us  all  those  rights  and  privileges  which  justly  belong  to  us  either 
by  charter  or  birth. 

"  As  his  Majesty's  other  North  American  Colonies  are  embarked 
with  us  in  this  most  important  bottom,  we  further  desire  you  to  use 
your  endeavors  that  their  weight  may  be  added  to  that  of  this  Prov- 
ince ;  that  by  the  united  applications  of  all  who  are  aggrieved,  all 
may  obtain  redress." 

This  is  the  earliest  public  document  written  by  Samuel 
Adams,  of  which  any  traces  remain ;  but  there  can  be  no 
question  that  his  pen  was  often  engaged  for  such  purposes, 
and  that  he  was  often  consulted  by  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  assisted  largely  in  devising  its 
measures,  as  well  as  in  preparing  the  drafts  of  state  papers  for 
that  body  before  his  election  to  it.  |The  Instructions  form 
an  important  landmark  in  American  history,  as  containing 
the  first  public  denial  of  the  right  of  the  British  Parliament 
to  tax  the  Colonists  without  their  consent ;  and  the  first  sug- 

*  This  passage  in  the  original  draft  seems  to  have  been  rejected  by  the  meet- 
ing at  which  the  instructions  were  adopted,  as  it  does  not  appear  in  the  Town 
Records. 


1764.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  49 

gestion  of  a  union  of  the  Colonies  for  redress  of  griev- 
ances. >  They  were  published  in  a  few  days  after  their  adop- 
tion, and  circulated  through  the  continent  as  the  avowed 
sentiments  of  Boston,  and  virtually  of  Massachusetts.  The 
important  position  is  also  taken,  that  the  Judges  are  de- 
pendent for  their  support  upon  the  General  Assembly ; 
an  appeal  is  made  for  unrestricted  trade ;  with  a  direct  hint 
that,  if  the  burdens  imposed  upon  it  are  not  removed,  the 
result  must  prove  detrimental  to  Great  Britain,  by  a  con- 
sequent decrease  in  the  consumption  of  English  manufac- 
tures. These  principles,  the  germs  of  those  which  after- 
wards constituted  the  great  issues  of  the  Revolution,  had 
long  been  immovably  fixed  in  the  author's  mind. 

The  effect  of  the  instructions  was  immediate.  They  be-  X 
came  the  basis  of  the  Provincial  policy ;  and  as  speaking  the 
wishes  of  the  people,  their  injunctions  were  at  once  acted 
upon  by  the  Legislature,  which  assembled  in  June.  One  of 
these  requirements  waslfchat  a  letter  of  instructions  be  sent 
to  the  agent  in  London,  setting  forth  the  loyalty  of  the  Prov- 
ince to  all  just  and  necessary  regulates  of  trade,  and  di- 
recting him  to  vindicate  the  rights  and  privileges  belonging 
to  the  people  by  charter  or  by  birth.  A  memorial  was 
consequently  drawn  up  by  James  Otis,  and  adopted,  in 
which  the  House  asks,  using  nearly  the  words  of  Mr.  Ad- 
ams, "  If  all  the  Colonies  are  to  be  taxed  at  pleasure,  with- 
out any  representative  in  Parliament,  what  will  there  be  to 
distinguish  them  in  point  of  liberty  from  the  subjects  of 
the  most  absolute  prince  ? " 

One  more  measure  remained  to  be  taken.  The  instruc- 
tions had  recommended  a  concert  of  action  with  the  sister 
Colonies  in  an  application  to  the  ministry  for  a  redress  of 
grievances.  The  members  from  Boston  made  this  a  por- 
tion of  their  duties ;  and  on  the  day  following  the  adoption 
of  the  letter  to  the  agent,  June  14th,  a  committee  was 
appointed  to  correspond  with  the  several  Assemblies  on  the 
continent,  who  were  invited  to  use  their  united  efforts  to 

•*« — VGi.  I.  4  ■       ■■—.,■ 


50  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1764. 

protect  their  essential  rights.*  This  was  the  first  plan  to 
unite  the  Colonies  in  opposition  to  Parliamentary  oppres- 
sion.! It  originated  with  Samuel  Adams,) who  had  the  , 
satisfaction  of  seeing  all  his  plans  in  successful  operation.)/ 
"  To  him,"  says  one  who  personally  knew  his  agency  in 
public  actions,  "is  the  nation  indebted  for  the  idea  of 
assembling  the  first  Congress  at  New  York,  which  led,  ten 
years  afterwards,  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and  finally 
to  the  union  and  confederation  of  the  Provinces. ":[:  During 
the  month  of  June,  James  Otis  and  Oxenbridge  Thacher 
had*  published  respectively  their  pamphlets,  the  first  the 
"  Rights  of  the  Colonies,"  and  the  second  the  "  Senti- 
ments of  a  British  American."  The  former  the  House 
adopted  as  their  own,  and  ordered  it  to  be  sent  to  the 
agent  in  England,  who  was  "  to  make  the  best  use  of  it  in 
his  power,  with  the  addition  of  such  arguments  as  his  good 
sense  should  suggest."  The  House  had  hardly  time  to 
accomplish  what  they  had  probablyf)reconeerted,  when  the 
Governor  prorogued  the  Assembly. 

Throughout  the  summer  the  Legislature  remained  pro- 
rogued.    The  Governor  had  said  at  the  last  session  that  he 
.   did  not  intend  calling  another  until  winter ;  but  the  call 
was  made  for  October,  when  the  House,  having  convened, 

*  After  the  sitting  of  the  New  York  Congress  in  the  following  year,  which 
was  the  offspring  of  this  measure,  Mr.  Adams  had  occasion  to  write  to  the 
patriot  Christopher  Gadsden  of  South  Carolina,  to  whom  he  says,  referring 
to  that  union  of  the  Colonies  :  "  Happy  was  it  for  us  that  a  union  was  then 
formed  upon  which,  in  my  humble  opinion,  the  fate  of  the  Colonies  turned. 
What  a  blessing  to  us  has  the  Stamp  Act  eventually,  or,  to  use  a  trifling  word, 
virtually  proved,  which  was  calculated  to  enslave  and  ruin  us.  When  the  Colo- 
nies saw  the  common  danger,  they  at  the  same  time  saw  their  mutual  depend- 
ence, and  mutually  called  in  the  assistance  of  each  other ;  and  I  dare  say  such 
friendships  and  connections  are  established  between  them  as  shall  for  the  future 
deter  the  most  virulent  enemy  from  making  another  open  attack  upon  their 
rights  as  men  and  subjects." 

t  Journal  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives  for  June,  1765.  Compare  Gra- 
hame's  History,  H.  388. 

%  Sketch  in  Sanderson's  Lives  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence.    Compare  Bancroft's  History,  V.  198-200. 


1764.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  51 

again  made  the  Boston  Instructions  the  groundwork  of 
their  proceedings  by  petitioning  the  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons  "for  a  repeal  of  the  Sugar  Act."  This  address 
had  been  prepared  before  the  session,  and  was  brought  in 
by  Oxenbridge  Thacher.  Samuel  Adams  probably  had  a 
hand  in  drafting  it.  Bradford,  in  his  sketch  of  him,  says : 
"  Before  he  was  a  member,  he  had  great  influence  with 
the  committees  appointed  to  prepare  state  papers,  and 
took  the  lead  in  the  proceedings  •  of  the  town  relating  to 
public  affair s."*  It  is  certain  that  in  two  different  state 
papers  of  the  following  year,  he  referred  to  this  remonstrance 
as  subsequently  amended  for  the  House  by  the  pen  of 
Hutchinson ;  and  very  soon  after,  in  a  letter  to  Richard 
Jackson,  again  deplores  the  tardiness  of  the  agent  in  not 
presenting  the  petition  and  pursuing  it  with  proper  vigor. 
Hutchinson  seems  to  suspect  the  hand  of  the  author  of  the 
Boston  Instructions,  for  he  says  that  the  original  address 
was  in  substance  conformable  to  that  paper.f  Elbridge 
Gerry,  a  few  years  before  his  death,  stated  that  he  had  heard 
a  member  of  the  Legislature  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion assert  that  Samuel  Adams  was  always  consulted,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  by  committees  appointed  to  draft  papers 
for  the  House,  for  some  years  before  he  became  a  member 
of  that  body,  and  that  some  of  these  were  entirely  from  his 
pen.  No  copy  of  the  address,  as  originally  drafted,  has 
been  preserved. 

The  influence  of  Adams's  vigorous  will  was  now  experi- 
enced and  acknowledged.     The  few  facts  which  can  be  gath- 

*  History  of  Massachusetts.  Hutchinson,  III.  133,  says  :  "  Mr.  Adams  had 
for  several  years  been  an  active  man  in  the  town  of  Boston,  always  on  the  side 
of  liberty,  and  was  the  reputed  author  of  many  of  the  publications  in  favor  of  it." 

t  The  answer  of  the  House  to  the  Governor's  address,  at  the  opening  of  this 
session,  suggested,  in  the  original  draft,  that  the  Colonies  would  be  obliged  to 
manufacture  for  themselves,  which  would  soon  operate  to  the  injury  of  the  Brit- 
ish manufacturers.  This  was  rejected  by  the  House,  and  does  not  appear  in  the 
printed  journal.  Yet  after  all  the  modifications  which  the  first  draft  underwent, 
the  resemblance  to  the  Boston  Instructions  is  remarkable. 


52  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1764. 

ered  of  his  public  actions  at  this  time,  though  vague  and 
unsatisfactory,  are  sufficient  to  portray  him  as  the  most  active 
politician  of  the  country.  His  contemporaries,  Otis  and 
Thacher,  and  several  of  lesser  note  in  the  House,  divided 
with  him  the  public  confidence  ;  and  of  Otis  it  is  true  that 
none  wielded  an  equal  power  over  the  multitude  in  public 
harangue  or  in  the  debates  of  the  Assembly.  But  Adams, 
by  his  superior  will  and  command  over  his  passions,  the  ac- 
knowledged sincerity  of  his  character,  and  a  genial  address, 
\  which  was  natural  and  enabled  him  to  convince  and  per- 
suade, stood  in  advance  of  all  others ;  while  in  his  political 
creed,  he  was  the  embodiment  of  the  most  practical  opposi- 
tion to  government  measures.  The  honor  of  originating 
measures  forming  the  basis  of  the  Colonial  policy  was  of  no 
importance  in  his  estimation  compared  to  the  great  results 
to  which  he  looked  forward.  The  time  was  now  at  hand 
for  the  infusion  of  his  energetic,  commanding  spirit  into 
the  Assembly,  by  his  immediate  presence  as  one  of  their 
number. 

Attention  to  public  affairs  so  engrossed  his  time  as  to  leave 
him  but  little  leisure  for  his  private  business,  of  which,  how- 
ever, the  proceeds  were  sufficient  for  the  maintenance  of  his 
children  in  a  respectable  rank  in  society,  and  to  give  them 
the  best  education  the  times  admitted.  He  superintended 
their  instruction  with  great  care,  and  by  precept  and  exam- 
ple endeavored  to  impress  their  minds  with  correct  moral 
principles.  He  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  that  they  were 
esteemed  and  loved.  Both  became  the  pride  of  his  man- 
hood ;  and  though  his  son,  Dr.  Adams,  was  cut  off  in  the 
prime  of  life,  after  the  Revolution,  his  daughter  lived  to  be 
the  solace  of  his  declining  years,  and  ministered  at  his 
death-bed. 

An  intimate  friend  of  his  father  had  been  Francis  Wells, 
Esq.,  an  English  merchant,  who,  as  his  own  record  states, 
arrived  in  his  ship,  "  ye  Hampstead  Galley,"  from  London, 
with  his  family  and  possessions,  in  August,  1723,  and  settled 


1764.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  53 

in  Boston.  Mr.  Adams  married  Elizabeth,  the  fifth  daughter 
of  Mr.  Wells,  for  his  second  wife,  on  the  6th  of  December, 
1764.  She  was  then  twenty-four  years  of  age,  a  lady  of  en- 
gaging manners,  amiable  disposition,  and  in  point  of  educa- 
tion well  qualified  to  become  the  companion  of  her  husband. 
An  excellent  housewife,  she  eked  out  by  her  close  economy 
their  small  income,  so  that  few  comforts  were  wanting. 
Through  all  the  darkened  periods  of  the  Revolution,  with 
the  attendant  privations  and  sufferings,  she  nobly  seconded 
her  husband  in  his  patriotic  efforts,  and  to  their  latest  days 
their  mutual  relations  were  a  model  of  tender  love  and  affec- 
tion. Their  residence  was  still  in  Purchase  Street,  where 
the  family  lived  until  the  occupation  of  the  city  by  the 
British  troops  in  1774.  The  house  was  partially  destroyed 
by  the  soldiers  at  the  time  of  the  evacuation. 

In  his  family,  Samuel  Adams  was  a  delightful  and  enter- 
taining companion.  His  cheerful  temper,  which  never  de- 
sponded, shed  a  perpetual  sunshine  of  happiness  upon  those 
about  him ;  and  his  intimacy  was  valued  by  his  acquaintances 
as  much  for  these  qualities  as  for  his  counsel  and  sagacity  in  \( 
public  affairs.  Though  a  stern  and  uncompromising  oppo- 
nent to  tyranny,  and  ever  presenting  an  undaunted  front  in 
his  ceaseless  warfare  against  schemes  of  oppression,  he  could 
unbend  among  his  friends  and  with  his  family.  Bancroft 
introduces  him  in  1764  with  a  just  and  splendid  tribute  to 
his  greatness  of  character. 

"  He  was  a  tender  husband,  an  affectionate  parent,  and  relaxing 
from  severer  cares,  he  could  vividly  enjoy  the  delights  of  conversa- 
tion with  friends ;  but  the  walls  of  his  modest  mansion  never  wit- 
nessed dissipation  or  levity  or  frivolous  amusements,  or  anything 
inconsistent  with  the  discipline  of  the  man  whose  incessant  prayer 
was  that  *  Boston  might  become  a  Christian  Sparta.* 

"  He  was  at  this  time  near  forty-two  years  of  age,  poor,  and  so  con- 
tented with  poverty  that  men  censured  him  as  *  wanting  wisdom  to 
estimate  riches  at  their  just  value/ 


\ 


54  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1764. 

"  But  he  was  frugal  and  temperate ;  and  his  prudent  and  industrious 
wife,  endowed  with  the  best  qualities  of  a  New  England  woman, 
knew  how  to  work  with  her  own  hands,  so  that  the  small  resources, 
which  men  of  the  least  opulent  class  would  have  deemed  a  very- 
imperfect  support,  were  sufficient  for  his  simple  wants.  Yet  such 
was  the  union  of  dignity  with  economy,  that  whoever  visited  him 
saw  around  him  every  circumstance  of  propriety.  Above  all,  he 
combined  with  poverty  a  stern  and  incorruptible  integrity."  * 

Mr.  Bancroft  quotes  the  former  Lord  Ashburton,  who 
gave  him  an  account  of  his  dining  with  Samuel  Adams  in 
Boston. 

Familiar  letters  often  reveal  the  disposition  of  the  writer 
more  truthfully  than  studied  compositions  intended  for  the 
eye  of  the  world.  The  following  epistle,  written  fifteen 
months  after  his  second  marriage,  illustrates  to  some  extent 
the  foregoing  remarks  upon  his  "  home  character."  It  was 
in  reply  to  his  friend  William  Checkley,  a  relative  of  his 
first  wife:  — 

Boston,  March  16,  1766. 
Dear  Sir  :  — I  received  your  letter  of  the  6th  instant  with  the 
greater  satisfaction,  as  it  brought  me  intelligence  of  your  having 
taken  some  resolutions  which  I  cannot  but  flatter  myself  will  greatly 
add  to  your  future  happiness  in  life.  Believe  me,  my  friend, — I  wish 
I  could  persuade  all  the  agreeable  bachelors  to  think  so,  —  there 
are  social  joys  in  honest  wedlock  which  single  life  is  a  stranger  to. 
You  will  allow  me  to  be  a  tolerably  good  judge,  having  had  experi- 
ence of  each  in  double  turns.  You  have  so  long  been  intimate  with 
Miss  Cranston  before  you  made  a  formal  address  to  her,  that  I  make 
no  doubt  your  choice  of  her  is  well  made.  I  have  a  good  opinion 
of  the  young  lady,  without  the  pleasure  of  an  acquaintance  with  her ; 
and  it  is  grounded  on  the  opinion  I  have  long  had  of  your  judgment 
and  integrity.  Without  flattery,  I  believe  you  would  hardly  have 
made  proposals  of  marriage  to  any  lady  who  had  not  those  ac 
complishments  which  will  always  make  a  man  of  integrity  and 
virtue  happy.  May  the  best  of  Heaven's  blessings  attend  you  both. 
I  somewhere  met  with  a  couplet  which  impressed  my  mind  in  early 
life. 

*  Bancroft,  V.  194. 


1765.J  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  55 

"  Sure  is  the  knot  Religion  ties, 
And  Love,  well  bounded,  never  dies." 

Pray  present  my  own  and  Betsy's  kind  respects  to  your  fair  one, 
and  be  assured  nothing  that  in  the  least  regards  your  welfare  can  be 

a  matter  of  indifference  to  either  of  us. 

Adieu, 

Sam.  Adams. 

March  24th. 
I  received  this  moment  yours  of  the  2  2d.     Should  have  forwarded 
this  per  post  had  he  not  been  interrupted  last  week.     Am  now  at 
the  wedding-house,  —  Deacon  Hill's. 

Yours, 

S   A* 
Mr.  William  Checkley. 

Early  in  1765,  Grenville  brought  forward  his  scheme  of 
taxation,  and  the  American  question  was  presented  by  the 
King  as  involving  "  obedience  to  the  laws,  and  respect  for 
the  legislative  authority  of  the  kingdom."  The  Lords  and 
Commons  responded  with  a  determination  to  proceed  with 
that  temper  and  firmness  which  "  will  best  conciliate  and  in- 
sure due  submission  to  the  laws  and  reverence  to  the  legisla- 
tive authority  of  Great  Britain."  The  Prime  Minister  had 
long  been  resolved  upon  raising  a  revenue  from  the  Colo- 
nies to  meet  the  demand  for  some  new  source  of  income ; 
and  when  the  resolutions  were  brought  up,  they  were  carried 
by  an  overwhelming  majority,  despite  the  opposition  of  Barre', 
Beckford,  Conway,  and  Jackson.  The  generous  spirit  of 
Barre'  shone  conspicuously  in  his  reply  to  Townshend,  who 
held  that  the  Colonies  had  been  "  planted  by  our  care, 
nourished  by  our  indulgence,  and  protected  by  our  arms." 
Barre*  refuted  the  assertions  in  detail  in  a  burst  of  uncon- 
trollable eloquence.     Concluding,  he  said :  — 

"  They  protected  by  your  arms !  They  have  nobly  taken  up  arms 
in  your  defence ;  have  exerted  a  valor  amidst  their  constant  and 
laborious  industry  for  the  defence  of  a  country  whose  frontier  was 
drenched  in  blood,  while  its  interior  parts  yielded  all  its  little  sav- 
ings to  your  emoluments;   and  believe  me, — remember  I  this  day 

*  New  England  Hist,  and  Genealogical  Register,  VII.  45. 


56  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

told  you  so,  —  the  same  spirit  of  freedom  which  actuated  that  people 

at  first  will  accompany  them  still The  people  I  believe  are 

as  truly  loyal  as  any  subjects  the  King  has ;  but  a  people  jealous  of 
their  liberties,  and  who  will  vindicate  them,  if  ever  they  should  be 
violated." 

But  the  subject  had.  been  carefully  considered,  and  the 
few  appeals  in  favor  of  the  Colonies  weighed  as  nothing 
against  the  determination  to  impose  the  tax.  The  bill 
passed  the  Commons  in  February,  was  agreed  to  by  the 
Lords  in  March,  and  received  the  royal  assent  in  the  same 
month.  The  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act  was  the  entering 
wedge,  —  the  first  of  the  series  of  measures  which  ended 
British  supremacy  in  the  Colonies. 

The  opinions  of  Samuel  Adams  on  the  question  of  Parlia- 
mentary taxation,  though  found  in  his  private  correspond- 
ence and  public  writings  towards  the  close  of  this  year,  are 
more  directly  expressed  in  a  political  essay  written  a  few 
years  later,  referring  to  the  period  of  which  we  are  now 
treating.  The  arguments  will  be  found  to  cover  the  whole 
ground  of  the  controversy.  A  writer  on  the  side  of  the 
government  had  asserted  and  attempted  to  prove  that  Par- 
liament was  warranted  by  law  and  justice  in  taxing  the 
Colonies.  Mr.  Adams  replied  in  the  organ  of  the  patriots, 
going  back  to  the  commencement  of  the  dispute,  and  show- 
ing the  illegality  and  injustice  of  the  measure :  — 

"  It  seems,"  says  Mr.  Adams,  "  to  be  generally  agreed  that  every 
man  who  is  taxed  has  a  right  to  be  present  in  person  or  by  his  own 
;  representative  in  the  body  which  taxes  him ;  or,  as  Lord  Camden  has 
expressed  it,  that '  taxation  and  representation  are  inseparable.'  A 
man's  property  is  the  fruit  of  his  industry ;  and  if  it  may  be  taken 
from  him  under  any  pretence  whatever,  at  the  will  of  another,  he 
cannot  be  said  to  be  free,  for  he  labors  like  a  bond  slave,  not  for 
himself,  but  for  another.  Or  suppose  his  property  comes  by  inheri- 
tance or  free  gift,  it  is  absolutely  his  own ;  and  it  cannot  rightly  be 
taken  from  him  without  his  consent.  This  I  take  to  be  the  com- 
monly received  opinion  concerning  liberty  as  regards  taxation.  And 
it  is   moreover  generally  understood,  that  upon  this  opinion   the 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  57 

very  being  of  a  free  government  depends.  The  writer  who  signs 
*  Z.  T.'  in  the  two  last  Evening  Posts,  think  it  is  very  hard  that '  he 
and  others  should  be  treated  with  sneers  and  ridicule,  and  as  ene- 
mies of  their  country,  for  not  falling  in  with  the  commonly  received 
opinion  of  liberty  and  taxation ' ;  but  till  he  makes  it  appear  that  it 
is  not  a  just  and  very  important  opinion,  he  has  no  reason  for  his 
complaint. 

" He  tells  us  that  in  the  year  1764,  'it  was  proposed  in  Parliament 
to  tax  the  Colonies  for  the  charge  of  their  government  and  defence ' ; 
and  intimates  the  reason :  '  The  nation  being  then  more  than  one 
hundred  and  forty  millions  in  debt,  which  was  above  sixty  millions 
more  than  it  was  the  last  year.'  I  would  ask  this  gentleman,  whether 
the  old-settled  Colonies,  or  particularly  whether  this  Province,  ever 
put  the  nation  to  a  farthing's  expense  for  its  government  or  defence 
from  the  first  settlement  of  it  to  this  day  ?  If  he  can  prove  it  ever 
did,  he  will  do  that  which  no  one  has  ever  been  able  to  do  before ; 
but  if  he  cannot,  and  I  presume  he  cannot,  the  reason  he  offers  why 
the  Colonies,  or  particularly  why  this  Province,  should  be  obliged 
to  pay  any  part  of  the  national  debt  is  of  no  validity.  But  he  seems 
to  be  aware  of  this  himself,  and  therefore  advances  another  reason 
why  it  was  proposed  that  the  Parliament  should  tax  America,  viz.,  to 
defend  the  conquered  provinces,  '  which  ought  not  to  be  left  without 
troops.'  And  it  was  not  reasonable  that '  England,  after  having  run 
so  deeply  in  debt  for  acquiring  them,  should  now  tax  itself  for  the 
maintenance  of  them.'  But  did  England  alone  run  deeply  in  debt  in 
conquering  the  French  in  America  ?  Did  not  the  Colonies  bear  a 
great  share  in  the  expense  of  it  ?  Undoubtedly.  Why  then  should 
not  England  tax  herself  at  least  for  a  part  of  the  maintenance  of 
them  ?  Because  great  stability  and  security  were  given  thereby  to 
all  the  American  governments.  Was  Canada  conquered  then  only 
for  the  sake  of  giving  stability  and  security  to  the  American  govern- 
ments ?  Had  Great  Britain  no  view  to  her  own  profit  ?  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  her  own  glory,  the  increase  of  her  trade,  and  the 
enlargement  of  her  empire  ?  Has  she  not  the  sole  advantage  of  the 
trade,  and  the  immense  tracts  of  land  which  the  Colonies  helped  her 
to  conquer  ?  And  is  it  a  sufficient  reason  why  they  should  pay  the 
whole  expense  of  defending  these  acquisitions,  because  stability  and 
security  were  given  to  them  by  means  of  the  conquest,  after  they 
had  pushed  their  settlements  to  the  infinite  advantage  of  the  mother 


58  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

country  at  their  own  expense,  and  in  continual  wars  with  the  French 
and  Indian  enemies,  some  of  them  for  a  century  and  a  half?  But 
the  plan  is  laid ;  ten  thousand  troops  must  be  kept  up  in  America, 
the  charge  of  them  only  computed  at  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds;  and  the  charge  of  troops  and  government,  three  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  pounds  per  annum ;  and,  considering  the  distress 
of  the  nation,  none  could  expect  to  prevail  against  a  tax  on  the 
Colonies.  And  further :  '  All  that  Mr.  Grenville  desired  was, 
that  America  would  bear  the  charge  of  its  own  government  and 
defence.'  In  pursuance  of  this  plan,  the  Stamp  Act,  he  tells  us, 
passed  the  House  of  Commons,  but i  in  complaisance  to  the  Colonies, 
and,  as  Mr.  Grenville  expressed  it,  to  consult  their  ease,  quiet,  and 
good  will,  it  was  hung  up  till  the  next  year,  to  give  them  the  oppor- 
tunity to  pass  it  themselves,  or  some  other  equivalent.'  This,  then, 
was  the  state  of  the  case :  the  House  of  Commons  was  resolved  to 
propose  to  the  Colonies  that  they  should  tax  themselves  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling  a  year  for  the  maintenance 
of  ten  thousand  troops  to  be  kept  up  in  America,  and  for  the  sup- 
port of  their  own  government  (which  they  had  always  before  honor- 
ably supported),  or  they  would  tax  them  by  the  passing  the  Stamp 
Act ;  and  our  writer,  by  way  of  question,  expresses  his  surprise,  that, 
instead  of  i  considering  the  distress  of  the  nation,  and  the  justness 
of  the  demand,  the  legality  of  their  right  to  tax  us  was  disputed,  and 
we  proceeded  boldly  to  assert  what  we  called  our  liberties.'  But  he 
ought  to  have  shown  that  the  Colonies  could  be  said  to  be  free  in 
either  case  supposed,  nor  in  the  one  more  than  in  the  other ;  and 
until  he  does  this,  he  cannot  reasonably  find  fault  with  them  for 
thinking  the  proposed  alternative  a  just  occasion  to  awaken  their 
attention,  and  that  it  was  high  time  for  them  boldly  to  assert  what 
they  knew  to  be  their  indefeasible  right,  viz.  to  grant  their  aid  with 
a  free  consent  and  without  constraint.  I  never  yet  heard  it  said, 
that  a  man  who  had  his  purse  demanded  of  him  by  a  superior  power 
acted  freely,  though  he  delivered  it  with  his  own  hand,  instead  of 
waiting  for  it  to  be  taken  from  him  by  force.  His  will  and  consent 
cannot  be  at  all  concerned  in  the  matter. 

"  Our  writer  tells  us  that  '  the  Stamp  Act  being  hung  up  (in  its 
state  of  a  bill)  for  a  year  might  have, favored  us  with  time  to  plead 
our  cause ;  and  he  doubts  not  but  we  might  have  been  freed  from 
the  greatest  part  of  those  charges.'     But  does  he  not  consider,  that, 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  59 

in  pleading  our  cause,  as  he  terms  it,  we  implicitly  put  it  in  the 
power  of  others  to  be  the  judges  whether  they  shall  tax  us  without 
our  consent ;  for  I  do  not  find  among  the  pleadings  which  he  would 
have  us  to  make,  there  is  anything  that  looks  like  a  saving  of  our 
rights.  And  supposing  that,  after  having  pleaded  our  cause  in  the 
manner  in  which  he  would  have  had  us  to  do  it,  we  should  not  have 
prevailed  upon  them  to  recede  from  their  purpose  of  taxing  us,  if 
we  did  not  tax  ourselves,  would  they  not  have  done  it  with  a  much 
better  grace,  and  told  us  that  we  ought  not  surely  to  complain,  since 
in  pleading  our  cause  before  them,  we  left  it  to  their  sole  judgment 
and  decision  whether  they  had  not  the  right  to  tax  us,  or,  which  is 
the  same  thing,  oblige  us  to  tax  ourselves ;  and  they  had  determined 
that  they  had  the  right.  This,  it  must  be  owned,  would  have  afforded 
a  happy  precedent  for  all  futurity. 

"  But  this  matter,  it  seems,  was  already  determined ;  for  he  tells 
us  that  '  the  Parliament,  previous  to  the  repeal,  resolved  that  they 
had  a  right  to  tax  us/  If  his  inference  is  that  they  really  had  the 
right,  because  they  resolved  that  they  had,  I  shall  only  say  that  his 
reasoning  is  much  like  that  of  a  late  letter-writer  from  London, 
whose  wonderful  performance,  if  I  mistake  not,  was  inserted  in  all 
our  newspapers,  who  says,  that,  '  when  an  act  of  Parliament  is  once 
passed,  it  becomes  a  part  of  the  Constitution/  This  at  once,  I  con- 
fess, shuts  the  mouths  of  all  Americans  from  complaining  of  revenue 
acts,  or  any  other  acts  of  Parliament  as  unconstitutional ;  for  what 
is  an  essential  part  of  the  Constitution,  I  think,  cannot  be  unconsti- 
tutional. 

"  Our  writer  intimates  very  strongly,  that  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 
Act  was  a  matter  of  favor  rather  than  justice  to  the  Colonies ;  that 
the  act  itself  was  the  discipline  of  a  tender  and  prudent  parent ; 
that  the  Colonies,  in  opposing  it,  discover  the  symptoms  of  distrac- 
tion ;  that  the  repeal  was  derogatory  to  the  honor  of  the  Parliament, 
but  it  was  done  to  give  the  Colonies  time  to  come  to  reason ;  that, 
instead  of  this,  their  obstinate  temper,  manifested  by  assuming  and 
insulting  airs,  has  made  troops  necessary  for  the  order  of  society. 
All  which,  no  doubt,  entitles  him  to  ministerial  favor,  with  a  pension 
of  two  hundred  a  year,  or  at  least  a  place  under  the  right  worship- 
ful American. 

"  After  all,  he  acknowledges  that  i  there  is  a  great  deal  of  justice 
and  propriety  in  the  case,  that  the  subjects  taxed  should  give  their 


60  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

consent  by  their  representatives.'  But  he  fears  that  if  our  plea 
stands  good,  that  the  Parliament  cannot  tax  us  now,  it  will  hold 
good  at  another  time ;  and  therefore  he  would  have  had  us,  against 
the  time  to  come,  when  he  supposes  we  may  '  become  equal  to  a 
fourth  part  of  the  whole/  to  acknowledge  that  they  had  the  right  to 
tax  us  for  such  sums  as  they  shall  think  proper  to  demand  of  us ; 
and  if  the  matter  had  been  <  thus  stated  and  pleaded  in  a  public 
manner,'  he  apprehends  '  it  would  have  influenced  the  people  in  the 
Colonies  to  make  a  different  choice  of  persons  to  represent  them, 
and  things  would  have  taken  a  different  turn.'  Perhaps  it  would 
have  pleased  this  writer  if  they  had  chosen  persons  who  would  have 
given  up  the  whole  dispute  about  the  right ;  for  I  cannot  see  that 
there  is  any  difference,  with  regard  to  the  right  in  question,  between 
the  Americans  consenting  forever  hereafter  to  tax  themselves  such 
sums  as  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  shall  apportion  them  to 
pay,  and  their  consenting  that  the  Parliament  shall  tax  them  as 
well  as  apportion  the  sum.  The  mode  of  taxation  in  the  one  case 
might  have  been  allowed  to  the  Americans,  and  that  is  generally 
allowed  even  to  an  enemy  in  the  case  of  military  contribution ;  but 
the  right  of  consenting  to  the  taxation  itself  would  be  given  up  ;  and 
in  that  case  would  not  the  Colonies  be  tributary  to  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  instead  of  fellow-subjects,  coequal  in  dignity  and 
freedom?"* 

By  the  provisions  of  the  Stamp  Act,  all  written  instru- 
ments in  daily  use  among  a  commercial  people  were  to  be 
null  and  void,  unless  executed  on  stamped  paper  or  parch- 
ment, upon  which  a  duty  was  to  be  collected  by  government 
officers.  It  was  to  take  effect  in  the  following  November, 
and  the  Colonists  had  ample  time  to  discuss  its  bearings  and 
to  frustrate  its  designs. 

The  news  reached  Boston  in  April,  and  was  received  with 
mingled  alarm  and  indignation*.,  _A _spirit  of  .resistance  was 
shown  in  every  Colony.  In  Virginia,  the  Resolves  of  the 
House  of  Burgesses,  drawn  up  by  Patrick  Henry  in  May,  gave 
impulse  to  the  movement  and  sounded  over  the  continent  in 
trumpet-tones.      Everywhere  they  were  read  and  carried 

*  T.  Z.,  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  January  9,  1769. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  61 

conviction.  In  Boston  the  excitement  was  intense,  and  the 
whole  Province  was  quickly  in  a  blaze  of  resentment.  At 
the  first  opportunity  the  determined  hostility  to  the  act  broke 
forth.  This  was  on  the  12th  of  August,  the  birthday  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales,  when  the  people  rent  the  air  with 
shouts  of  "  Pitt  and  Liberty  " !  and,  the  enthusiasm  rising 
with  the  occasion,  it  was  concerted  to  hang  the  appointed  dis- 
tributor of  stamps  in  effigy.  On  the  morning  of  the  14th, 
the  stuffed  figure  of  Oliver  was  seen  dangling  from  Liberty- 
Tree,  together  with  a  large  boot,  to  represent  Lord  Bute,  from 
the  top  of  which  peeped  forth  a  head  with  horns,  intended 
to  personify  the  Devil.  The  authorities  did  not  attempt  to 
remove  the  effigies,  for,  in  the  excited  state  of  the  popular 
mind,  it  was  difficult  to  say  how  far  the  rage  of  the  people 
might  lead  them.  The  Sons  of  Liberty,  with  whom  the  pro- 
ceedings originated,  kept  the  matter  in  hand,  and  at  evening 
cut  the  figures  down  and  carried  them  in  procession  through 
the  town,  borne  on  a  bier.  The  multitude  moved  in  perfect 
order,  and  their  route  was  lined  with  people.  They  passed 
through  the  town-house  and  under  the  council-chamber, 
where  the  Governor  and  Council  were  sitting.  "Liberty, 
property,  and  no  stamps  "  !  were  shouted  in  the  ears  of  the 
listening  dignitaries  above.  The  Sons  of  Liberty  were  pre- 
ceded by  some  forty  or  fifty  tradesmen,  decently  dressed ; 
and  the  whole  body  marched  to  King  Street,  where  they  de- 
molished a  frame  which  they  believed  the  stamp  distributor 
was  building  for  an  office.  Thence  they  proceeded  to  Fort 
Hill,  where  Oliver  resided,  and  with  fragments  of  the  frame 
which  they  brought  with  them,  built  a  bonfire  in  which  the 
effigies  were  consumed.  Bernard  and  Hutchinson  fled  to 
the  Castle  for  safety.*    Old  Boston  had  rarely  witnessed  such 

*  See  Hutchinson's  letter  to  Bernard,  Sept.  15,  1770,  in  which,  detailing  his 
flight  at  that  time  to  the  Castle,  after  it  had  passed  from  the  Provincial  authority, 
he  says :  "  In  the  evening,  I  took  boat  at  Dorchester,  two  or  three  miles  from 
my  house,  and  went  to  the  Castle ;  and  you  will  believe  I  could  not  help  think- 
ing of  your  and  my  passage  to  the  same  place  about  five  years  before."  (See 
Chap.  XVII.  of  the  present  work,  where  this  letter  is  quoted  in  full.) 


62  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

a  commotion.  But  the  popular  wrath  did  not  end  here.  At 
nightfall  on  the  26th  of  August,  remembering  the  agency  of 
Hutchinson  in  subverting  their  liberties,  a  mob  collected 
again  at  a  late  hour,  burnt  the  records  of  the  Admiralty, 
and  ravaged  the  houses  of  Hallowell,  Comptroller  of  the 
Customs,  and  of  Hutchinson,  whose  plate,  books,  and  val- 
uable collection  of  manuscripts  they  threw  into  the  street, 
barely  giving  the  owner  time  to  escape  with  his  family,  and 
utterly  destroying  the  interior  of  perhaps  the  finest  private 
residence  in  the  Province.* 

These  outbreaks  of  lawless  violence,  though  manifesting 
1  .  .the  spirit  of  opposition  to  the  late  acts  of  Parliament,  were 
-  ■■  ■  viewed  with  horror  by  most  of  the  popular  leaders,  and  by 
none  more  so  than  Mr.  Adams.  The  period  of  peaceful 
remonstrance  had  not  yet  terminated  with  him.  It  was  the 
policy  of  the  Colonies  to  avow  their  sincere  loyalty  to  Great 
Britain,  which  they  reiterated  in  every  state  paper ;  and  acts 
of  insubordination  were  only  calculated  to  mar  the  harmony 
of  these  plans.  Petitions  and  dutiful  representations  were 
to  be  the  basis  of  operations  for  ten  years  to  come,  though 
a  few  looked  beyond  these  measures  to  an  eventual  appeal 
to  Heaven.  In  the  present  instance,  Adams  agreed  with  his 
friend  Mayhew  that  he  would  rather  lose  his  hand  than  en- 
courage such  outrages,  and  he  personally  aided  the  civil 
power  in  preventing  them.  { He  saw  no  impropriety,  however 
in  the  earlier  portion  of  the  proceedings  of  August  14th, 
when  the  tradesmen  marched  in  procession  and  hung  the 
stamp  distributor  in  effigy ;  believing  that  when  loyal  peti- 
tions were  unavailing,  such  an  orderly  and  unanimous  dem- 
onstration was  the  only  legal  method  to  advise  the  authorities 
of  the  popular  feeling.  ) 

A  town  meeting  was  summoned  early  on  the  following 
day,  at  which  the  last  night's  proceedings  were  condemned, 
and  a  series  of  resolutions  adopted  desiring  the  Selectmen  to 
suppress  the  like  riots  for  the  future,  and  pledging  the  aid  of 

*  Mass.  Gazette  for  August  19,  1765.     Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  124. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  63 

the  people  to  preserve  order.*  Writing  to  Richard  Jackson, 
the  Colonial  agent,  a  few  months  later,  as  one  of  a  committee 
of  the  Assembly,  Adams  referred  to  this  riot  particularly,  ap- 
prehending its  evil  effects  against  the  efforts  which  were 
making  in  behalf  of  the  Province :  "  As  the  Stamp  Act  had 
given  the  greatest  uneasiness  even  to  the  most  judicious  men 
of  the  Colony,' '  it  was  not,  he  thought,  "  to  be  wondered  at, 
that  among  the  common  people  such  steps  should  be  taken 
as  could  not  be  justified,  it  being  frequent  in  populous  towns 
when  grievances  are  felt.  This  had  been  the  case  in  Boston, 
where  the  people  had  shown  their  resentment  in  such  ways 
as  were  not  uncommon  elsewhere."  These  proceedings  he 
denounced  as  "  high-handed  outrages,"  "  of  which  the  in- 
habitants immediately,  at  a  meeting  called  for  the  purpose 
within .  a  few  hours  after  the  perpetration  of  the  act,  pub- 
licly declared  their  detestation.  All  was  done  the  day  fol- 
lowing that  could  be  expected  from  an  orderly  town,  by 
whose  influence  a  spirit  was  raised  to  oppose  and  suppress 
it.  It  is  possible  these  matters  may  be  represented  to  our 
disadvantage,  and  therefore  we  desire  you  will  take  all  pos- 
sible opportunities  to  set  them  in  a  proper  light." 

The  society  known  as  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty"  seems  to 
have  originated  either  immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the 
news  from  England  that  the  Stamp  Act  had  become  a  law, 
or  about  the  time  of  the  August  riot,  as  the  name  was  prob- 
ably adopted  from  a  similar  term  applied  to  the  Bostonians 
by  Colonel  Barre*  in  his  late  speech.  The  writer  of  a  one- 
sided account  of  the  riot,  in  the  Boston  News-Letter,  immedi- 
ately after  its  occurrence,  speaks  of  a  report  that  "  the  society 
by  the  name  of  the  Union  Club  "  was  established  that  night ; 
and  doubtless  refers  to  the  same  organization.  Tlie  "  Sons 
of  Liberty"  were  soon  thoroughly  organized  and  subject  to 
the  direction  of  influential  leaders.  They  were  composed, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  laboring  classes  and  mechanics,  and 
were  successfully  secret  in  all  their  meetings  and  prepara- 

*  Drake's  Boston,  p.  701. 


64  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

tions  for  concerted  movements.  They  issued  warrants  for 
the  arrest  of  suspected  persons,  arranged  in  secret  caucus 
the  preliminaries  of  elections  and  the  programme  for  patri- 
otic celebrations,  and  in  fact  were  the  main-spring,  under 
the  guidance  of  the  popular  leaders,  of  every  public  demon- 
stration against  the  government.  They  probably  numbered 
about  three  hundred,  and  held  their  public  meetings  in 
"  Liberty  Hall,"  the  name  given  to  a  space  around  "  Liberty 
Tree,"  at  the  junction  of  Newbury,  Orange,  and  Essex 
Streets,  which  afforded  ample  room  for  a  gathering  of 
several  thousand  persons.  Their  private  meeting  place, 
according  to  John  Adams,  was  the  counting-room  in  Chase 
and  Speakman's  distillery  in  Hanover  Square.  The  count- 
ing-room however,  from  its  size,  could  have  been  only  the 
rendezvous  of  committees  of  the  association.  Sojne_-of  the 
other  towns  soon  followed  the  example  of  Boston,  and  the 
"  Sons  of  Liberty  "  were  established  in  several  of  the  Colo- 
nies, especially  in  New  York,  Rhode  Island,  Georgia,  Mary- 
land, and  South  Carolina. 

At  the  opening  of  the  session  of  the  Legislature  in  May, 
Governor  Bernard  had  notified  the  members  that  the  general 
settlement  of  the  American  Provinces,  which  had  long  ago 
been  proposed,  and  was  now  probably  to  be  completed,  would 
necessarily  produce  some  regulations  which,  from  their  nov- 
elty only,  would  appear  disagreeable.  He  recommended  a 
respectful  submission  to  the  decrees  of  Parliament  as  the 
duty  and  for  the  interest  of  the  people.*  Committees  were 
appointed  to  answer  those  sections  in  the  speech  relating  to 
all  matters  excepting  the  Stamp  Act,  which  had  been  thus 
tenderly  introduced.  Upon  that  subject  the  House  made  no 
reply,  but,  acting  upon  the  impulse  of  the  last  year's  Boston 
Instructions,  advising  a  Colonial  union  for  redress,  James 
Otis  proposed  the  calling  of  committees  from  the  several 
Houses  of  Representatives  or  Burgesses  on  the  continent 
to  consult  together  on  the  dangers  and  difficulties  surround- 

*  Journal  of  the  House  for  1765. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  65 

ing  them,  "  and  to  consider  of  a  general  and  united,  dutiful 
and  humble,  representation  of  their  condition  to  his  Majesty 
and  the  Parliament,  to  implore  relief."  The  1st  of  October 
was  proposed  for  the  day  of  assembling  at  New  York,  and  cir- 
cular letters  to  this  effect  were  sent  to  the  other  Assemblies. 
The  co-operation  of  the  sister  Colonies,  in  the  opinion  of 
Adams,  left  no  room  for  delay.  He  desired  that  the  Legis- 
lature should  assert  and  maintain  the  liberties  of  the  people 
guaranteed  them  by  charter,  and  their  rights  as  British  sub- 
jects, and  should  preserve  the  independence  of  the"  House 
of  Representatives ;  and  to  have  the  inherent  rights  of  the 
Province  placed  upon  the  records  of  the  House,  that  pos- 
terity might  see  that  men  were  not  wanting  in  those  days 
who  understood  and  could  vindicate  them.  Before  the  re- 
assembling of  the  Legislature  in  the  fall  of  1765,  he  was  ap- 
pointed, at  a  town  meeting,  one  of  a  committee  "  to  consider 
of  what  instructions  were  proper  to  be  given  to  the  Repre- 
sentatives of  the  town  as  to  their  conduct  in  the  General 
Court  for  the  remainder  of  the  year."  It  was  customary 
to  give  these  instructions  at  or  immediately  after  the  spring 
elections ;  but  the  critical  condition  of  public  affairs  de- 
^manded  that  the  Boston  seats  should  be  specially  instructed 
for  the  ensuing  session,  more  particularly  because,  by  the  ex- 
tensive publication  of  these  injunctions  as  ordered  by  the 
meeting,  the  cause  of  liberty  would  be  subserved.  The  com- 
mittee intrusted  the  task  to  Samuel  Adams,  and  on  the  18th , 
he  reported  his  draft,  which,  after  "  being  read  paragraph  by 
paragraph,  was  unanimously  adopted."  The  Legislature  was 
to  meet  one  week  later,  and  in  the  interim,  the  instructions, 
which  were  printed  next  day  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  spread 
far  and  wide,  and  set  the  example  to  the  other  towns. 
Braintree,  led  by  John  Adams,  soon  after  made  similar  dec- 
larations, and  those  written  by  Samuel  Adams  thus  became 
the  platform  of  the  whole  Province.* 

*  John  Adams,  in  his  Autobiography,  speaking  of  the  Braintree  Instructions 
drawn  up  by  him,  says :  "  They  rang  through  the  State  and  were  adopted  in 

VOL.    I.  5 


66  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

"  At  a  time,"  the  paper  commences,  "  when  the  British  American 
subjects  are  everywhere  loudly  complaining  of  arbitrary  and  un- 
constitutional innovations,  the  town  of  Boston  cannot  any  longer 
remain  silent  without  just  imputation  of  inexcusable  neglect. 

"By  the  royal  charter  granted  to  our  ancestors,  the  power  of 
making  laws  for  our  internal  government,  and  of  levying  taxes,  is 
vested  in  the  General  Assembly ;  and  by  the  charter,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  this  Province  are  entitled  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of 
natural  free-born  subjects  of  Great  Britain.  The  most  essential 
rights  of  British  subjects  are  those  of  being  represented  in  the  same 
body  which  exercises  the  power  of  levying  taxes  upon  them,  and  of 
having  their  property  tried  by  juries.     These  are  the  very  pillars  of 

bo  many  words,  as  I  was  informed  by  the  Eeprcsentatives  of  that  year,  by 
forty  towns,  as  instructions  to  their  Representatives.  They  were  honored  suf- 
ficiently by  the  friends  of  the  government  with  the  epithets  of  inflammatory," 
&c.  "About  this  time,"  he  continues,  "I  called  upon  Samuel  Adams,  and 
found  him  at  his  desk.  He  told  me  he  had  been  employed  to  draw  instruc- 
tions for  their  Representatives  ;  that  he  felt  an  ambition  which  was  very  apt  to 
mislead  a  man,  —  that  of  doing  something  extraordinary ;  and  he  wanted  to 
consult  a  friend  who  might  suggest  some  thoughts  to  his  mind.  I  read  his  in- 
structions and  showed  him  a  copy  of  mine.  I  told  him  I  thought  his  were  very 
well  as  far  as  they  went,  but  he  had  not  gone  far  enough.  Upon  reading  mine, 
he  said  he  was  of  my  opinion,  and  accordingly  took  into  his  some  paragraphs 
from  mine." 

There  is  an  inaccuracy  in  this  narration  very  excusable  in  one  who  is  recall- 
ing his  first  public  act,  performed  half  a  century  before.  Samuel  Adams  was 
appointed  to  draft  the  Boston  Instructions  on  the  12th  of  September ;  they  were 
accepted  on  the  18th,  and  published  in  the  Boston  Gazette  on  the  19th.  The 
Braintree  Instructions,  which  John  Adams  says  he  prepared  at  home  and  carried 
with  him  to  the  meeting,  are  dated  September  24th.  They  were  not  published 
until  October  10th  in  Draper's  Gazette,  and  October  14th  in  the  Boston  Gazette, 
and  Green  and  Russell's  Post  Boy  and  Advertiser.  The  celebrity  therefore 
gained  by  either  must  rather  have  attached  to  the  Boston  Instructions,  as  those 
by  John  Adams  were  not  made  public  until  after  the  Legislature  had  assembled 
and  had  been  a  fortnight  prorogued. 

John  Adams  also  says  :  "  In  the  Braintree  Instructions,  if  I  recollect  any 
reprehensible  fault,  it  was  that  they  conceded  too  much  to  the  adversary,  not  to 
say  enemy."  It  may  be  reasonably  asked  then,  if  these  instructions  conceded 
too  much,  how  could  Samuel  Adams's  have  been  improved  by  adopting  them  1 

On  the  priority  of  the  Boston  Instructions,  and  their  influence  among  the  other 
towns  of  Massachusetts,  see  Bancroft,  V.  329. 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  67 

the  British  Constitution,  founded  on  the  common  rights  of  mankind. 
It  is  certain  that  we  were  in  no  sense  represented  in  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain  where  this  act  of  taxation  was  made,  and  it  is  also 
certain  that  this  law  admits  of  our  properties  being  tried  in  contro- 
versies arising  from  internal  concerns  by  courts  of  admiralty  with- 
out a  jury.  It  follows  that  at  once  it  annihilates  the  most  valuable 
privileges  of  our  charter,  deprives  us  of  the  most  essential  rights  of 
Britons,  and  greatly  weakens  the  best  security  of  our  lives,  liberties, 
and  estates,  which  may  hereafter  be  at  the  disposal  of  judges  who 
may  be  strangers  to  us,  and  perhaps  malicious,  mercenary,  corrupt, 
and  offensive. 

a  Moreover,  this  act,  if  carried  into  execution,  would  become  a 
further  grievance  to  us,  as  it  will  afford  a  precedent  for  the  Par- 
liament to  tax  us  in  all  future  time,  and  all  such  ways  and  measures 
as  they  shall  judge  meet,  without  our  consent. 

"  "We  therefore  think  it  our  indispensable  duty,  in  justice  to  our- 
selves and  posterity,  as  it  is  our  undoubted  privilege,  in  the  most 
open  and  unreserved,  but  decent  and  respectful  terms,  to  declare 
our  greatest  dissatisfaction  with  this  law.  And  we  think  it  incum- 
bent upon  you  by  no  means  to  join  any  public  measures  for  counte- 
nancing and  assisting  in  the  execution  of  the  same  ;•  but  to  use  your 
best  endeavors  in  the  General  Assembly  to  have  the  inherent,  in- 
alienable rights  of  the  people  of  this  Province  asserted  and  vindi- 
cated, and  left  upon  the  public  records,  that  posterity  may  never 
have  reason  to  charge  the  present  times  with  the  guilt  of  giving 
them  away." 

After  expressing  the  satisfaction  of  the  town  at  the  consent 
given  by  most  of  the  other  Colonies  to  the  Congress  proposed 
by  the  Massachusetts  House,  Mr.  Otis  is  expressly  enjoined 
"  to  contribute  to  the  utmost  of  his  ability  in  having  the 
rights  of  the  Colonies  stated  in  the  clearest  view  and  laid 
before  the  Parliament ;  and  in  preparing  a  humble  petition 
to  the  King,  our  sovereign  and  father,  under  whose  generous 
care  and  protection  we  have  the  strongest  reason  to  hope 
that  the  rights  of  the  Colonies  in  general,  and  the  particular 

*  Compare  Answer  of  the  House  to  the  Governor's  Speech,  Oct.  24th. 


68  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1765. 

charter  rights  of  this  Province,  will  be  confirmed  and  per- 
petuated." 

The  meeting  substituted  the  word  "patron"  for  "  father." 
Before  the  adjournment  a  committee  was  appointed,  of 
which  Mr.  Adams  was  a  member,  to  prepare  a  resolution 
thanking  Conway  and  Barre*  for  their  noble  and  generous 
speeches  at  the  last  session  of  Parliament,  and  directing  that 
their  portraits  should  be  placed  in  Faneuil  Hall  as  soon  as 
they  could  be  obtained. 

Governor  Bernard,  in  his  opening  address  to  the  Legis- 
lature, on  the  25th  of  September,  alluded  to  the  late  vio- 
lences, and  the  declarations  which  had  been  made  against 
the  execution  of  the  Stamp  Act  within  the  Province.  _The 
instructions  of  the  previous  week  had  enjoined  the  Boston 
members  of  the  Legislature  against  participating  m-any^ttb- 
lic  measures  for  countenancing  or  assisting  the  execution  of 
the  act.  The  ordinary  executive  authority  of  the  govern- 
ment being  insufficient  to  oppose  the  force  with  which  such 
"  declarations  "  were  supported,  the  Governor  now  called  on 
the  Legislature  for  aid.  He  asserted  that  Parliament  had  the 
right  to  make  laws  for  the  American  Colonies,  that  it  would 
maintain  and  support  its  authority,  and  that  opposition 
would  bring  on  a  contest  which  might  prove  the  most  detri- 
mental and  ruinous  event  which  could  happen  to  this  people. 
Parliament  would  most  probably  require  submission  as  a 
preliminary  to  granting  relief.  His  Excellency  then  drew  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  dreadful  effect  of  a  general  refusal  to  use 
the  stamped  papers,  and  the  consequent  shutting  up  of  the 
courts  of  justice  and  custom-houses,  —  the  fraud  and  rapine 
which  would  succeed  to  credit  and  mutual  faith.  The  hand 
of  violence  would  be  let  loose,  and  general  distress  and  out- 
lawry would  reign. 

"  I  would  not,"  he  continued,  "  willingly  aggravate  the  dangers 
which  are  before  you :  I  do  not  think  it  very  easy  to  do  it.  This 
Province  seems  to  me  to  be  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  and  that  it 
depends  upon  you  to  prevent  it  falling.     Possibly  I  may  fear  for 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  69 

you  more  than  you  do  for  yourselves;  but  in  the  situation  you  stand, 
a  sight  of  your  danger  is  necessary  to  your  preservation ;  and  it  is  my 
business  to  open  it  to  you." 

Thus  the  Governor  artfully  attempted  to  excite  the  House 
to  commit  themselves  on  the  limits  of  Parliamentary  author- 
ity. On  the  following  day  a  committee  was  appointed  to 
prepare  a  reply.  A  bill  declaring  the  necessity  of  going  on 
with  the  general  business  of  the  Province  without  stamps 
was  introduced,  and  was  occupying  the  attention  of  the  two 
Houses,  when  the  alarmed  Governor  suddenly  prorogued  the 
Assembly. 


CHAPTER    III 


Death  of  Oxenbridge  Thacher.  —  Adams  enters  the  Massachusetts  Legisla- 
ture. —  The  Governor  prorogues  the  Assembly.  —  Adams  replies  to  the 
Governor's  Speech,  and  prepares  the  Massachusetts  Resolves.  —  Effect  and 
Celebrity  of  these  Productions.  —  He  is  elected  Clerk  of  the  Assembly.  — 
Arrival  of  the  Stamps.  —  Adams  instructs  the  Agent  in  London.  —  Is 
Chairman  of  a  Public  Meeting  for  the  opening  of  the  Law  Courts.  —  The 
Patriotic  Club.  —  John  Adams's  Description  of  its  leading  Members. 

The  early  contest  for  American  liberty  lost  a  stanch  sup- 
porter about  this  time  in  Oxenbridge  Thacher,  a  lawyer  of 
fine  abilities,  an  unassuming  gentleman  and  scholar,  and  a 
man  of  the  most  admirable  character  in  all  the  relations  of 
life.  In  1764,  his  publications  in  support  of  the  Colonial 
liberties  had  been  widely  circulated ;  and  though  of  a  feeble 
constitution,  which  demanded  a  penalty  of  suffering  for  every 
exertion  at  the  bar,  or  in  the  Legislature  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  he  entered  into  the  struggle  for  liberty  with  an 
earnest  heart,  and  his  life  was  shortened  by  his  anxiety  and 
efforts  in  the  cause.  He  died  of  disease  of  the  lungs  at  the 
age  of  forty-five,  equally  conspicuous  for  his  unaffected  piety' 
and  sterling  patriotism. 

f  On  the  morning  of  September  27th,  a  town  meeting  was 
called  to  elect  a  Representative  in  the  place  of  Mr.  Thacher ; 
and  Samuel  Adams  receiving  the  majority  of  votes,  was  de- 
clared by  the  Selectmen  duly  elected.  He  entered  the  As- 
sembly the  same  day,*  and  was  immediately  qualified,  and 

*  "Veneris,  27  Die  Septembris,  A.  D.  1765.  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  re- 
turned Representative  from  the  Town  of  Boston,  making  his  Appearance  in  the 
House,  Ordered,  That  Mr.  Cushing  of  Boston  attend  him  to  the  Gentlemen  ap- 
pointed by  Dedimus  to  administer  the  Oaths  required  by  the  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment to  the  several  Members  of  this  House.     Who  returned  that  they  had 


Sept.,  Oct.,  1765.]         UFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  71 

not  a  moment  too  soon ;  for  scarcely  was  the  act  consum- 
mated, when  a  message  was  brought  down  from  the  Gov- 
ernor proroguing  the  Assembly  to  the  last  week  in  October. 
This  of  course  prevented  the  committee  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  answer  the  Governor's  speech  from  replying  until 
the  next  session.  The  Legislature  reassembled  on  the  24th 
of  October,  when  the  committee's  report,  written  by  Mr. 
Adams,  was  taken  up  and  accepted.*  This  document  in- 
augurated a  political  era,  and  was  as  surprising  to  the 
Governor  and  his  friends  as  it  was  satisfactory  to  the 
patriots. 
The  reply  states  that  the  sentiments  of  the  House  would 

attended  him  accordingly,  that  he  had  taken  the  same  and  subscribed  the 
Declaration ;  and  then  Mr.  Adams  took  his  seat  in  the  House."  —  Journal  of 
the  House  for  September,  1765. 

*  This  paper  has,  without  a  shadow  of  evidence,  been  ascribed  to  James 
Otis  (see  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  182).  The  evidences  of  its  being  the 
production  of  Samuel  Adams  leave  no  question  as  to  the  authorship.  Ad- 
ams having  been,  as  we  have  seen,  qualified  a  member  of  the  House  only  a 
few  minutes  before  the  Governor  prorogued  the  Assembly,  it  was  not  possible 
to  place  him  upon  the  original  committee  for  drafting  the  answer ;  but  the 
best  proof  that  his  pen  was  employed  during  the  recess  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  on  the  reassembling,  he  appears  as  chairman  of  the  committee  appointed 
to  present  the  answer  to  his  Excellency,  —  the  House  naturally  making  him 
the  bearer  of  his  own  production.  Hutchinson  distinctly  ascribes  this  paper, 
as  well  as  the  celebrated  resolves  subsequently  offered  in  the  House,  to  Samuel 
Adams  (Hutchinson's  History,  III.  133,  134).  And  Governor  Bernard,  in  his 
letters  to  the  Ministry,  points  to  him  without  naming  him.  The  style  is  that 
of  no  other  person,  and  the  sentiments  are  not  those  of  Otis,  who  favored  an 
Ameincan  representation  in  Parliament,  which  this  paper  pronounces  to  be  im- 
practicable. But  the  matter  is  finally  set  at  rest  by  the  fact  that  Otis  was  ab- 
sent at  the  Congress  in  New  York  from  the  day  the  last  Assembly  had  been 
prorogued  until  November  1st,  —  or  a  week  after  this  answer  had  been  reported 
and  sent  up  to  the  Governor ;  therefore  he  could  not  have  been  the  author.  He 
moreover  pronounced  the  celebrated  Virginia  Resolves  of  May  in  this  year  to 
be  treasonable  (see  Hutchinson,  III.  119) ;  and  as  the  Massachusetts  Resolves, 
which  appeared  almost  simultaneously  with  the  answer  now  under  considera- 
tion, were  intended  to  accompany  and  support  that  answer,  and  went  even 
further  than  those  of  Virginia  had  done,  Otis  cannot  be  consistently  associated 
with  the  authorship  of  either  of  these  remarkable  papers.  On  Samuel 
Adams's  authorship,  see  Bancroft,  V.  349. 


72  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

sooner  have  been  communicated  had  not  the  late  sudden  and 
unexpected  adjournment  prevented  it. 

.  •  .  •  • 

"  Your  Excellency  tells  us  that  the  Province  seems  to  be  upon  the 
brink  of  a  precipice  !  A  sight  of  its  danger  is  then  necessary  for  its 
preservation.  To  despair  of  the  Commonwealth  is  a  certain  presage 
of  its  fall.  Your  Excellency  may  be  assured  that  the  representa- 
tives of  the  people  are  awake  to  a  sense  of  its  danger,  and  their 
utmost  prudence  will  not  be  wanting  to  prevent  its  ruin. 

"Your  Excellency  is  pleased  to  tell  us  that  declarations  have 
been  made  and  still  subsist,  that  the  act  of  Parliament  for  granting 
the  stamp  duties  in  the  Colonies  shall  not  be  executed  within  the 
Province.  We  know  of  no  such  declarations.  If  any  individuals 
of  the  people  have  declared  an  unwillingness  to  subject  themselves  to 
the  payment  of  the  stamp  duties,  and  choose  rather  to  lay  aside  all 
business  than  to  make  use  of  the  stamped  papers,  we  are  not  account- 
able for  such  declarations,  so  neither  can  we  see  anything  criminal  in 
them.  This  House  has  no  authority  to  control  their  choice  in  this 
matter.  The  act  does  not  oblige  them  to  make  use  of  the  papers ; 
it  only  exacts  the  payment  of  certain  duties  for  such  papers  as  they 
may  incline  to  use.  Such  declarations  may  possibly  have  been 
made  and  may  still  subsist  very  consistently  with  the  utmost  respect 
to  the  King  and  Parliament. 

"  You  are  pleased  to  say  that  the  Stamp  Act  is  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  as  such  ought  to  be  observed.  This  House,  sir,  has  too 
great  a  reverence  for  the  supreme  legislature  of  the  nation  to  ques- 
tion its  just  authority.  It  by  no  means  appertains  to  us  to  presume 
to  adjust  the  boundaries  of  the  power  of  Parliament ;  but  bounda- 
ries there  undoubtedly  are.  We  hope  we  may,  without  offence,  put 
your  Excellency  in  mind  of  that  most  grievous  sentence  of  excom- 
munication solemnly  denounced  by  the  Church  in  the  name  of  the 
sacred  Trinity,  in  the  presence  of  King  Henry  the  Third  and  the 
estates  of  the  realm,  against  all  those  who  should  make  statutes  or 
observe  them  being  made  contrary  to  the  liberties  of  Magna  Charta. 
We  are  ready  to  think  those  zealous  advocates  for  the  Constitution 
usually  compared  their  acts  of  Parliament  with  Magna  Charta; 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  73 

and  if  it  ever  happened  that  such  acts  were  made  as  infringed  upon 
the  rights  of  that  charter,  they  were  always  repealed. 


"  Furthermore,  your  Excellency  tells  us  that  the  right  of  the  Par- 
liament to  make  laws  for  the  American  Colonies  remains  indispu- 
table in  Westminster.  Without  contending  this  point,  we  beg  leave 
just  to  observe  that  the  charter  of  this  Province  invests  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  with  the  power  of  making  laws  for  its  internal  gov- 
ernment and  taxation;  and  that  this  charter  has  never  yet  been 
forfeited./  The  Parliament  has  a  right  to  make  all  laws  within  the 
limits  of  their  own  Constitution.  Among  these,  is  the  right  of  rep- 
resentation in  the  same  body  which  exercises  the  power  of  taxation. 
There  is  a  necessity  that  the  subjects  of  America  should  exercise 
this  power  within  themselves,  otherwise  they  can  have  no  share  in 
that  most  essential  right,  for  they  are  not  represented  in  Parliament, 
and  indeed  we  think  it  impracticable.  Your  Excellency's  assertion 
leads  us  to  think  that  you  are  of  a  different  mind  with  regard  to  this 
very  material  point,  and  that  you  suppose  we  are  represented ;  but 
the  sense  of  the  nation  itself  seems  always  to  have  been  otherwise/' 
The  right  of  the  Colonies  to  make  their  own  laws  and  tax  them- 
selves has  been  never,  that  we  know  of,  questioned ;  but  has  been 
constantly  recognized  by  the  King  and  Parliament.  The  very  sup- 
position that  the  Parliament,  though  the  supreme  power  over  the 
subjects  of  Britain  universally,  should  yet  conceive  of  a  despotic 
power  within  themselves,  would  be  most  disrespectful ;  and  we  leave 
it  to  your  Excellency's  consideration,  whether  to  suppose  an  indis- 
putable right  in  any  government  to  tax  the  subjects  without  their 
consent,  does  not  include  the  idea  of  such  a  power. 

"  Our  duty  to  the  King,  who  holds  the  rights  of  all  his  subjects 
sacred  as  his  own  prerogative,  and  our  love  to  our  own  constituents 
and  concern  for  their  dearest  interests,  constrain  us  to  be  explicit  upon 
this  very  important  occasion.  We  beg  that  your  Excellency  would 
consider  the  people  of  this  Province  as  having  the  strongest  affec- 
tion for  his  Majesty,  under  whose  happy  government  they  have  felt 
all  the  blessings  of  liberty :  they  have  a  warm  sense  of  the  honor, 
freedom,  and  independence  of  the  subjects  of  a  patriot  king ;  they 
have  a  just  value  for  those  inestimable  rights,  which  are  derived  to 
all  men  from  nature,  and  are  happily  interwoven  in  the  British  Con- 


74  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

stitution ;  they  esteem  it  sacrilege  for  them  to  ever  give  them  up  ; 
and  rather  than  lose  them  they  would  willingly  part  with  everything 
else.  /  We  deeply  regret  it  that  the  Parliament  has  seen  fit  to  pass 
such  an  act  as  the  Stamp  Act.  We  flatter  ourselves  that  the  hard- 
ships of  it  will  shortly  appear  to  them  in  such  a  point  of  light  as 
shall  induce  them  in  their  wisdom  to  repeal  it.  In  the  mean  time, 
we  must  beg  your  Excellency  to  excuse  us  from  doing  anything  to 
assist  in  the  execution  of  it." 

The  answer  closes  with  a  refusal  to  compensate  the  suffer- 
ers by  the  late  riots,  as  the  Governor  had  recommended ; 
and  as  he  had  cast  a  reflection  on  the  Province,  in  conse- 
quence of  those  disturbances,  they  reply  :  — 

"  We  inherit  from  our  ancestors  the  highest  relish  for  civil  lib- 
erty, but  we  hope  never  to  see  the  time  when  it  shall  be  expedient 
to  countenance  any  methods  for  its  preservation  but  such  as  are  legal 
and  regular.  When  our  sacred  rights  are  infringed,  we  feel  the 
grievance;  but  we  understand  the  nature  of  our  happy. Constitution 
too  well,  and  entertain  too  high  an  opinion  of  the  virtue  and  justice 
of  the  supreme  Legislature,  to  encourage  any  means  of  redressing  it, 
but  what  are  justifiable  by  the  Constitution."  * 

Pending  the  recess  of  the  Assembly,  Mr.  Adams  had  pre- 
pared, in  accordance  with  his  Boston  Instructions,  a  series  of 
resolves  intended  to  be  offered  to  the  House  at  its  meeting 
in  October.  These  Instructions  had  directed  that  the  inhe-  \ 
rent  and  inalienable  rights  of  the  people  should  be  asserted 
and  vindicated,  and  their  assertion  and  vindication  left  upon 
the  public  records  for  transmission  to  posterity.  The  op- 
portunity had  now  arrived  when  he  could  introduce  those 
resolves,  digested  and  condensed,  as  a  guide  by  which  the 
policy  of  the  Province  in  its  subsequent  controversies  should 
be  directed,  and  a  model  according  to  which  public  docu- 
ments discussing  the  popular  liberties  should  henceforward 
be  framed.  The  answer  to  the  speech  was  accepted  by  the 
House  in  the  forenoon  of  October  24th ;  and  in  the  after- 
noon of  the  same  day,  a  committee,  of  which  Mr.  Adams 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  43.      Grahame,  II.  401. 


LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  75 

was  a  member,  was  appointed  "  to  prepare  proper  resolves 
expressing  the  sentiments  of  this  House  with  respect  to  their 
rights  and  privileges."  The  report  was  not  made  until  two 
days  later,  a  delay  occasioned  by  the  deliberation  naturally 
arising  among  the  committee  upon  so  important  a  meas- 
ure. On  the  26th,  the  report  was  read  to  the  House,  and 
ordered  to  be  taken  into  consideration  on  the  29th  at 
three  o'clock,  and  was  meantime  "  to  lie  on  the  table  for 
the  perusal  of  the  members."  On  the  day  appointed,  says 
the  record,  "  the  House,  agreeable  to  the  order  of  the  day 
(there  being  a  full  House),  entered  into  the  consideration 
of  the  resolves,  which  were  particularly  considered  and 
passed." 

"  Whereas  the  just  rights  of  his  Majesty's  subjects  of  this  Prov- 
ince, derived  to  them  from  the  British  Constitution,  as  well  as  the 
royal  charter,  have  been  lately  drawn  into  question :  in  order  to 
ascertain  the  same,  this  House  do  unanimously  come  into  the  follow- 
ing resolves  :  — 

"  1.  Resolved,  That  there  are  certain  essential  rights  of  the  Brit- 
ish Constitution  of  government,  which  are  founded  in  the  law  of 
God  and  nature,  and  are  the  common  rights  of  mankind ;  —  there- 
fore, 

"  2.  Resolved,  That  the  inhabitants  of  this  Province  are  unalien- 
ably  entitled  to  those  essential  rights  in  common  with  all  men  :  and 
that  no  law  of  society  can,  consistent  with  the  law  of  God  and  na- 
ture, divest  them  of  those  rights. 

"  3.  Resolved,  That  no  man  can  justly  take  the  property  of  an- 
other without  his  consent;  and  that  upon  this  original  principle, 
the  right  of  representation  in  the  same  body  which  exercises  the 
power  of  making  laws  for  levying  taxes,  which  is  one  of  the  main 
pillars  of  the  British  Constitution,  is  evidently  founded. 

"4.  Resolved,  That  this  inherent  right,  together  with  all  other 
essential  rights,  liberties,  privileges,  and  immunities  of  the  people  of 
Great  Britain,  have  been  fully  confirmed  to  them  by  Magna  Charta, 
and  by  former  and  by  later  acts  of  Parliament. 

"  5.  Resolved,  That  his  Majesty's  subjects  in  America  are,  in  rea- 
son and  common  sense,  entitled  to  the  same  extent  of  liberty  with 
his  Majesty's  subjects  in  Britain. 


76  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct.,  Nov. 

"  6.  Resolved,  That  by  the  declaration  of  the  royal  charter  of 
this  Province,  the  inhabitants  are  entitled  to  all  the  rights,  liberties, 
and  immunities  of  free  and  natural  subjects  of  Great  Britain  to  all 
intents,  purposes,  and  constructions  whatever. 

"  7.  Resolved,  That  the  inhabitants  of  this  Province  appear  to  be 
entitled  to  all  the  rights  aforementioned  by  an  act  of  Parliament, 
13th  of  Geo.  II. 

"  8.  Resolved,  That  those  rights  do  belong  to  the  inhabitants  of 
this  Province  upon  the  principle  of  common  justice  ;  their  ancestors 
having  settled  this  country  at  their  sole  expense,  and  their  posterity 
having  approved  themselves  most  loyal  and  faithful  subjects  of 
Great  Britain. 

"  9.  Resolved,  That  every  individual  in  the  Colonies  is  as  advan- 
tageous to  Great^Britain  as  if  he  were  in  Great  Britain  and  held  to 
pay  his  full  proportion  of  taxes  there ;  and  as  the  inhabitants  of  this 
Province  pay  their  full  proportion  of  taxes  for  the  support  of  his 
Majesty's  government  here,  it  is  unreasonable  for  them  to  be  called 
upon  to  pay  any  part  of  the  charges  of  the  government  there. 

"  10.  Resolved,  That  the  inhabitants  of  this  Province  are  not,  and 
never  have  been,  represented  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain ; 
and  that  such  a  representation  there  as  the  subjects  in  Britain 
do  actually  and  rightfully  enjoy  M  impracticable  for  the  subjects  in 
America ;  —  and  further,  that  in  the  opinion  of  this  House,  the  sev- 
eral subordinate  powers  of  legislation  in  America  were  constituted 
upon  the  apprehensions  of  this  impracticability. 

"11.  Resolved,  That  the  only  method  whereby  the  constitutional 
rights  of  the  subjects  of  this  Province  can  be  secure,  consistent  with 
a  subordination  to  the  supreme  power  of  Great  Britain,  is  by  the 
continued  exercise  of  such  powers  of  government  as  are  granted  in 
the  royal  charter,  and  a  firm  adherence  to  the  privileges  of  the  same. 

"  12.  Resolved,  —  as  a  just  conclusion  from  some  of  the  foregoing 
resolves,  —  That  all  acts  made  by  any  power  whatever,  other  than 
the  General  Assembly  of  this  Province,  imposing  taxes  on  the  in- 
habitants, are  infringements  of  our  inherent  and  unalienable  rights 
as  men  and  British  subjects,  and  render  void  the  most  valuable 
declarations  of  our  charter. 

"  13.  Resolved,  That  the  extension  of  the  powers  of  the  Court  of 
Admiralty  within  this  Province  is  a  most  violent  infraction  of  the 
right  of  trials  by  juries,  —  a  right  which  this  House,  upon  the  princi- 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  77 

pies  of  their  British  ancestors,  hold  most  dear  and  sacred ;  it  being 
the  only  security  of  the  lives,  liberties,  and  properties  of  his  Majes- 
ty's subjects  here. 

"  14.  Resolved,  That  this  House  owe  the  strictest  allegiance  to  his 
most  sacred  Majesty  King  George  the  Third ;  that  they  have  the 
greatest  veneration  for  the  Parliament ;  and  that  they  will,  after  the 
example  of  all  their  predecessors  from  the  settlement  of  this  coun- 
try, exert  themselves  to  their  utmost  in  supporting  his  Majesty's  au- 
thority in  the  Province,  in  promoting  the  true  happiness  of  his  sub- 
jects, and  in  enlarging  the  extent  of  his  dominion. 

"  Ordered,  That  all  the  foregoing  resolves  be  kept  in  the  records 
of  this  House,  that  a  just  sense  of  liberty  and  the  firm  sentiments 
of  loyalty  be  transmitted  to  posterity."  * 

These  resolves  startled  the  whole  Province.  They  were 
extensively*  published,  and  in  fact  they  rang  through  the 
entire  continent.  Together  with  the  answer,  they  were  re- 
ceived in  England  as  "  the  ravings  of  a  parcel  of  wild  enthu- 
siasts." f  Both  excited  universal  applause  in  New  England. 
Governor  Hopkins  of  Rhode  Island,  afterwards  a  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  said,  at  the  political  club 
in  Providence,  that  "  nothing  had  been  so  much  admired 
there  through  the  whole  course  of  the  controversy  as  th& 
answer  to  the  Governor's  speech,  though  the  Massachusetts 
Resolves  were  the  best  digested  and  the  best  of  any  on  the 
continent." 

The  1st  of  November,  the  day  on  which  the  hated  Stamp 
Act  was  to  go  into  operation,  was  ushered  in  with  the  tolling 
of  bells  and  the  firing  of  minute-guns,  while  the  flags  of  the 
vessels  in  port  were  displayed  at  half-mast,  and  an  unfalter- 
ing determination  was  everywhere  shown  to  nullify  and 
effectually  oppose  the  act.  The  crisis  was  a  momentous 
one,  and  required  decisive  measures.  At  early  morning 
the  effigies  of  Grenville  and  of  Huske,  who  had  recom- 

*  Journal  of  the  House  of  Representatives  for  October  29, 1765.    Bradford's 
State  Papers,  p.  50. 
t  Bancroft,  V.  349. 


78  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

mended  the  passage  of  the  act,  were  seen  suspended  from 
the  branches  of  Liberty  Tree,  where  they  hung  until  after- 
noon. They  were  then  cut  down  and  carted  with  great 
solemnity,  escorted  by  a  multitude  of  the  people,  to  where 
the  General  Assembly  was  in  session,  and  thence  to  the  gal- 
lows on  the  Neck,  where  they  were  again  suspended,  and 
finally  were  torn  in  pieces  and  flung  to  the  winds.  All 
classes  and  conditions  mingled  in  these  transactions ;  and 
such  manifestations  of  public  sentiment  were  not  repugnant 
to  the  principles  of  Mr.  Adams  and  his  friends,  provided 
they  were  not  coupled  with  personal  violence  or  damage  to 
property.  In  this  instance  the  proceedings  were  conducted 
without  rioting ;  and,  at  the  conclusion,  the  people  dispersed 
quietly  to  their  homes,  at  the  request  of  their  leaders,  and 
the  night  was  undisturbed  by  confusion  or  noise.* 

During  the  September  session  the  stamped  papers  had 
arrived  from  England,  and  the  Governor,  at  a  loss  what  dis- 
position to  make  of  them,  asked  the  advice  of  the  Council, 
who  prudently  referred  him  to  the  Assembly.  The  latter 
declined  giving  him  either  advice  or  assistance,  conformably 
to  the  policy  they  had  adopted,  of  refusing  to  assist  in  the 
execution  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  effect  of  a  non-distribu- 
tion of  the  stamps  would  be  to  suspend  business  in  the 
Province,  and  to  close  the  courts  of  justice,  the  proceedings 
of  which  would  be  illegal  without  them.  The  Assembly,  as 
we  have  seen,  on  the  day  of  their  last  prorogation,  were  con- 
sidering a  bill  declaring  the  necessity  of  going  on  with  all 
business  without  the  stamps.  On  the  reassembling  in  Octo- 
ber, they  at  once  proceeded  to  adopt  measures  to  counter- 
act, if  possible,  the  evils  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  was  to  take 
effect  in  another  week.  A  committee,  of  which  Adams  was 
a  member,  carried  up  the  answer  to  the  Governor's  an- 
nouncement in  the  previous  session,  that  the  stamped  papers 
had  arrived ;  and  on  the  following  day  he  was  chosen  one  of 
a  committee  to  report  upon  proper  methods  to  prevent  dif- 

*  Barry's  Massachusetts,  II.  305.     Drake's  Boston,  p.  708. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  79 

Acuities  that  might  arise  in  the  proceedings  of  courts  of 
justice  after  the  day  on  which  the  act  was  to  go  into  oper- 
ation. 

The  stamps  had  meantime  been  placed  in  the  Castle,  agree- 
ably to  the  recommendation  of  the  Council ;  and  to  protect 
them,  an  additional  guard  had  been  ordered,  for  the  pay- 
ment of  whom  warrants  were  issued  by  the  Governor  and 
Council,  without  the  necessary  resolve  of  the  Assembly. 
The  House  took  the  alarm,  and  on  the  first  day  of  the  ses- 
sion, a  committee,  of  which  Mr.  Adams  was  chairman,  was 
appointed  to  ascertain  what  drafts  had  been  made  from  the 
several  appropriations  in  the  act  for  supplying  the  treasury. 
He  was  also  placed  on  a  second  committee,  on  the  4th  of 
November,  to  report  a  proper  remonstrance  to  the  Governor 
and  Council  in  relation  to  the  issue  of  moneys  for  repairing 
forts  and  fortifications.  The  two  reports  were  made  a  few 
days  later  to  the  Governor  and  Council.  The  former  was 
from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Adams.  The  paper  clearly  exposes 
the  illegality  of  the  draft  of  moneys  from  the  treasury  for 
the  payment  of  an  additional  military  company  at  Castle 
William. 

"  If  the  Governor  and  Council  have  a  right  in  any  case  to  raise 
and  pay  one  company,  they  may  raise  ten,  or  a  hundred,  and  at 
their  pleasure  subject  this  people  to  be  governed  by  a  standing 
army.  We  therefore,  in  duty  to  ourselves,  our  constituents,  and 
our  posterity,  declare  the  said  procedure  to  be  a  high  infraction  of 
the  rights  of  this  House,  with  whom  the  origin  and  granting  of  all 
taxes  on  the  freeholders  and  inhabitants  of  this  Province  is  indubi- 
tably and  constitutionally  lodged."  * 

The  remonstrance  then  desires  the  Council  to  order  the 
said  sum  to  be  replaced  in  the  treasury  for  the  public  ser- 
vice. 

This  was  the  most  dangerous  and  arbitrary  measure  that 
had  been  attempted,  and  an  emphatic  denouncement  of  it 
was  required.     The  Council  replied  on  the  following  day, 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  51. 


80  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 

vindicating  their  position  and  themselves  from  any  intended 
infraction  of  the  rights  of  the  House,  and  averring  that  the 
draft  had  been  sanctioned  by  them  with  great  reluctance. 
The  House  again  responded,  through  a  committee  of  which 
Mr.  Adams  was  a  member,  deploring  that  the  obnoxious 
measure  should  have  been  justified,  prescribing  what,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  House,  were  the  limits  of  the  power  of  the 
Governor  and  Council  during  a  recess  of  the  General  Court, 
and  denying  the  right  of  either  to  dispose  of  the  public  mon- 
eys without  the  assent  of  the  people's  representatives. 

Mr.  Otis,  who  had  been  absent  during  the  last  session,  ar- 
rived from  New  York  early  in  November.  The  proceedings 
of  the  Colonial  convention  held  in  that  city  having  been 
adopted  by  the  House,  Dennys  Deberdt  was  chosen  a  special 
agent  in  London  to  present  and  support,  on  the  part  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, the  petitions  prepared  on  that  occasion  ;  and  on 
the  following  day,  Mr.  Adams  was  one  of  a  committee  to  con- 
sider what  grants  of  money  were  proper  to  be  made  to 
Messrs.  Deberdt  and  Jackson.  The  latter,  the  standing 
agent  of  the  Province,  had  already  been  instructed.  De- 
berdt, who  was  a  respectable  London  merchant  and  ardently 
attached  to  the  cause  of  the  Colonies,  was  agent  for  "  the 
three  lower  counties,"  now  the  State  of  Delaware,  as  well  as 
for  Massachusetts.  A  letter  of  instructions,  dated  November 
7th,  was  prepared  by  Samuel  Adams  for  the  committee,  to 
convey  to  Jackson  the  sentiments  of  the  House.  From  his 
original  draft  the  following  extracts  are  transcribed.  Jack- 
son had  been  notified  in  May  of  this  year  what  steps  to  take 
in  relation  to  the  Stamp  Act,  and  Adams  believed  there  was 
too  much  reason  to  apprehend  that  past  applications  for 
redress  had  failed  for  want  of  due  zeal  in  those  whose  busi- 
ness it  had  been  to  support  them. 

"We  cannot  but  think,"  he  continues,  "that  the  exceptions 
which  the  Colonies  had  to  offer  against  a  measure  new  and  extraor- 
dinary in  its  kind  would  not  have  been  refused,  if  they  had  been 
supported  with  proper  vigor.     For  although,  as  you  observe,  it  was 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  81 

against  a  bill  depending  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  imposing 
taxes,  it  might  and  ought  to  have  been  urged  that  those  very  taxes 
were  proposed  to  be  laid  upon  many  thousands  of  freeholders  who 
were  not  represented  in  Parliament,  and  who  therefore  in  no  other 
way  could  make  their  circumstances  known  and  the  hardships  which 
the  bill  depending  would  bring  upon  them,  but  by  humble  supplica- 
tions. 

"  We  heartily  wish  it  was  more  fully  considered  on  your  side  the 
water  than  it  seems  now  to  be,  that  the  only  method  whereby  Great 
Britain  can  make  her  Colonies  useful  to  her  is  by  encouraging  their 
trade.  Our  dependence  at  present  is  altogether  upon  your  manu- 
factures for  many  of  the  necessary  articles  of  life,  and  it  is  our  trade 
only  that  can  furnish  us  with  the  means  of  purchasing  them.  The 
burdens  upon  trade  already  imposed,  particularly  by  the  Sugar  Act, 
have  made  it  so  difficult  to  procure  remittances,  that  there  will  be  a 
necessity  of  stopping  in  a  great  measure  the  importation  of  English 
goods.  And  indeed  the  people  of  the  Colonies  seem  more  and  more 
determined  to  do  without  them  as  far  as  possible ;  and  how  much 
the  mother  country  will  be  prejudiced  thereby  is  obvious  to  a  com- 
mon observation. 

"  We  do  not  find  that  the  hardships,  under  color  of  requiring 
sufferances  in  the  case  of  inland  navigation  from  Colony  to  Colony, 
have  been  eased.  You  will  find  by  the  act  made  by  the  last  ses- 
sion of  Parliament,  to  which  we  imagine  you  have  a  reference,  that 
no  vessels  are  exempt  but  boats,  flats,  shallops,  and  other  vessels 
without  decks,  under  twenty  tons,  and  which  shall  not  be  carried 
out  to  sea  above  one  league  from  the  shore.  The  declared  design  of 
the  act  is,  that  no  unnecessary  restraint  may  lay  upon  the  trade  and 
correspondence  of  his  Majesty's  American  subjects  when  goods  are 
carried  from  Colony  to  Colony,  merely  for  the  use  and  sustenance  of 
said  Colony.  You  will  please  to  consider  that  we  have  a  sea-coast 
of  fifteen  hundred  miles,  and  very  little  inland  navigation.  Few 
such  small  vessels,  if  any,  described  in  the  act,  are  ever  employed 
from  Colony  to  Colony ;  and  besides,  they  must  of  necessity,  to  avoid 
headlands  in  passing  not  only  from  Colony  to  Colony,  but  even  from 
Boston  to  most  parts  of  this  Province,  for  the  necessary  article  of 
fuel,  go  beyond  the  limit  of  a  league  to  sea.  Moreover,  most  if  not 
all  of  our  coasters  and  fishermen,  being  decked  vessels,  are  obliged 

VOL.  i.  6 


82  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 

to  give  bond,  and  take  sufferances  which  will  subject  many  of  them 
to  the  expense  of  travelling  many  miles.  We  desire  you  would  look 
into  the  act  and  apply  for  the  relief  which  the  Parliament  seem  to 
have  had  in  their  intention." 

This  letter  embraces  the  chief  causes  of  complaint.  The 
hint  at  non-importation  is  significant.  That  measure  be- 
came a  few  years  later  one  of  the  most  powerful  engines  of 
opposition  in  Massachusetts,  where  Mr.  Adams  was  its  orig- 
inator and  persistent  advocate  ;  and,  when  resistance  was 
organized  into  a  system  including  the  thirteen  Colonies,  it 
was  adopted  as  one  of  the  great  measures  of  concerted  war 
fare  against  oppression. 

The  Legislature,  which  adjourned  on  the  8th  of  Novem- 
ber, was  not  to  meet  again  until  January.  Business  de- 
clined in  the  Province,  and  the  utmost  distress  began  to  be 
experienced.  Yet  no  stamps  were  purchased  to  legalize 
business  or  other  transactions.  Rather  than  make  use  of 
them,  proceedings  in  all  courts  of  justice  were  suspended ; 
and  the  disputes  which,  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
were  taken  before  such  tribunals,  were  decided  by  arbitra- 
tion. The  act  was  even  disregarded.  Ships  entered  and 
cleared  without  stamps ;  and  printers  of  newspapers,  fear- 
less of  consequences,  boldly  disseminated  their  defences 
of  liberty  without  the  obnoxious  stamp  affixed  to  their 
journals.  In  New  York,  Rhode  Island,  and  Connecticut, 
the  exasperated  populace  had  given  the  most  signal  proofs 
of  their  indignation.  So  general  was  the  opposition  to 
the  act,  that  the  stamp  officers  in  all  the  Colonies  were 
compelled  to  resign.  In  Boston  care  was  taken,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  violent  proceedings,  and, 
on  the  other,  to  keep  up  in  full  vigor  the  spirit  of  resistance. 
A  newspaper — "  The  Constitutional  Courant," — was  estab- 
lished, having  for  its  device  a  snake  divided  into  as  many 
parts  as  there  are  Colonies,  and  forjis  motto,  "Join  or  die." 
Oliver,  the  stamp  officer,  was  required  to  resign  his  office 
under  Liberty-Tree,  in  the  presence  of  a  great  concourse. 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  83 

Non-importation  agreements  were  adopted  in  the  Colonies, 
and  associations  were  organized  for  the  encouragement  of 
domestic  manufactures.  Sullen  discontent  spread  over  the 
Province. 

Answering  the  statement  made  in  England,  that  the  tax 
was  to  discharge  the  Colonists'  proportion  of  the  expense  of 
former  wars  for  their  defence,  Mr.  Adams  about  this  time 
wrote  to  a  friend  in  London,  with  the  view  of  furnishing  him 
with  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Province.  After  showing 
that  the  nation  were  the  debtors  of  the  Colonists  for  sub- 
duing and  settling  an  uncultivated  wilderness  at  their  own 
expense,  he  asks :  — 

"  And  is  there  no  credit  to  be  given  to  the  New  England  Colonies, 
who  not  only  purchased  these  territories  of  the  natives,  but  have 
defended  them  for  above  a  century  against  the  encroachments  of 
these  warlike  savages,  with  fortitude  scarcely  equalled,  without  a 
farthing's  expense  to  the  nation? 

•  .  •  •  • 

"  You  are  sensible,  sir,  that  it  has  been  her  policy  to  oblige  the 
Colonies  to  carry  the  chief  of  their  produce  to  Great  Britain,  and 
take  off  her  manufactures  in  return ;  and  as  they  must  conform  to 
her  price  both  in  buying  and  selling,  one  would  think  the  advantage 
she  reaps  by  this  trade  would  be  sufficient.  This  is  an  indirect  tax. 
The  nation  constantly  regulates  their  trade,  and  lays  it  under  what 
restrictions  she  pleases ;  and  the  duties  on  the  goods  imported  from 
her  and  consumed  here,  together  with  those  which  are  laid  on  almost 
every  branch  of  our  trade,  all  of  which  centres  in  cash  in  her  coffers, 
amount  to  a  very  great  sum.  The  money  drawn  from  us  in  the  way 
of  actual  direct  taxes,  by  means  of  these  regulations,  it  is  thought 
will  very  soon  put  an  end  to  the  trade.  Of  this  you  are  as  able  to 
judge  as  any  gentleman  ;  and,  if  it  be  the  case,  it  certainly  requires 
prudent  and  impartial  consideration.  For  all  the  advantage  the 
nation  can  expect  to  reap  from  the  Colonies  must  arise  from  com- 
merce. Their  whole  profits,  saving  a  moderate  subsistence  for  them- 
selves, flow  in  upon  her  through  various  channels.  The  stamp 
duty,  if  the  act  is  continued  in  force,  will  probably  in  a  very  few 
years  take  off  the  whole  of  their  cash,  and  leave  them  none  to  carry 


84  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

on  any  trade  at  all.  I  wish  that  trade  policy,  as  a  very  sensible 
gentleman  has  expressed  it,  was  better  understood  by  the  present 
rulers  in  the  mother  country  with  respect  to  the  Colonies.  By  re- 
strictions and  duties  she  is  even  now  in  danger  of  putting  an  end  to 
their  usefulness  to  her;  whereas,  by  abolishing  those  duties  and 
giving  them  indulgences,  they  would  be  enabled  to  repay  her  a 
hundred  fold." 

These  arguments,  which  were  afterwards  reproduced  in 
many  forms,  were  thrown  away  upon  the  short-sighted  states- 
men of  England.  An  increase  of  the  trade  and  opulence  of 
America,  it  was  thought,  would  have  a  dangerous  tendency 
to  encourage  its  independence,  and  the  revenue  laws  were 
as  much  designed  to  keep  the  Colonies  in  subjection,  as  to 
raise  a  revenue  from  them. 

On  the  18th  of  December,  the  day  after  Oliver  had  been 
compelled  to  resign,  a  town  meeting  was  called  for  the  pur- 
pose of  taking  measures  for  the  opening  of  the  courts.  The 
stagnation  of  business  was  bringing  ruin  upon  all  classes ; 
yet  the  persistency  of  purpose  against  using  the  stamps 
never  once  faltered.  The  meeting  appointed  a  committee, 
with  Mr.  Adams  as  chairman,  to  present  a  petition  to  the 
Governor  and  Council  for  the  opening  of  the  courts ;  and 
it  was  agreed  to  apply  to  Jeremiah  Gridley,  James  Otis, 
and  John  Adams,  to  appear  in  behalf  of  the  town  in  sup- 
port of  the  memorial.  John  Adams,  then  a  young  and 
promising  lawyer,  was  included  at  the  instance  of  his 
friend  and  kinsman  of  Boston,  and  he  left  Braintree  for  the 
capital  the  next  day  after  receiving  the  summons.  The 
same  evening  he  attended  the  town  meeting.  His  diary 
of  that  date  says :  "  After  dinner,  went  to  the  town-house, 
and  attended  with  the  committee  of  the  town  of  Boston  and 
many  other  gentlemen  in  the  Representatives'  room  till 
about  dark,  after  candle-light,  when  Mr.  Adams,  the  chair^ 
man  of  the  committee,  received  a  message  from  the  Governor 
by  the  Deputy-Secretary,  purporting  that  his  Excellency  and 
the  Council  were  ready  to  hear  the  memorial  of  the  town  of 


1765. 


LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  85 


Boston,  and  the  counsel  in  support  of  it,  but  that  no  other 
persons  might  attend."  *  A  brief  allusion  to  the  arguments 
and  proceedings  of  the  meeting  follows.  The  Governor 
responded,  that  there  was  no  precedent  for  the  interference 
of  himself  and  Council.  Samuel  Adams,  who  had  presented 
the  petition,  reported  to  the  town  on  the  25th,  when  the 
Governor's  answer  was  voted  to  be  unsatisfactory ;  and  Otis, 
who  was  present,  declared  that  he  knew  of  no  legal  and 
constitutional  course  the  town  could  take,  but  to  direct  their 
Representatives  to  request  the  Governor  to  call  a  convention 
of  the  members  of  both  Houses ;  and,  if  he  would  not,  to 
call  one  themselves.  The  meeting  had  no  further  effect 
than  to  suggest  measures  of  opposition  to  the  arbitrary  pro- 
ceedings of  Parliament ;  and  with  the  Province  courts  still 
closed,  and  a  consequent  total  suspension  of  business,  a 
gloomy  stillness  reigned  throughout  the  country. 

John  Adams,  while  in  Boston,  attended  the  political  club, 
which  he  visited  in  company  with  Samuel  Adams.  Of  this 
club,  Otis,  Cushing,  Wells,  Gray,  Dawes,  Austin,  two  Wal- 
dos, Story,  Inches,  and  Dr.  Parker  are  mentioned  as  mem- 
bers. The  father  of  Samuel  Adams  had  been  the  leading 
member  of  a  similar  club  forty  years  before.  But  the  Cau- 
cus (caulkers')  Club  of  the  earlier  times  was  composed 
mainly  of  ship-building  mechanics,  whose  political  influ- 
ence was  all  powerful  then  as  afterwards.  This  very  nu- 
merous body  were  the  warm  friends  of  the  elder  Adams., 
as  they  were  of  his  son  throughout  the  Revolution.  At \ 
the  commencement  of  the  difficulties  between  the  Colo- 
nies and  the  mother  country,  the  club  was  composed  of  a 
few  persons  who  met  at  each  other's  houses,  arranged 
the  preliminaries  of  elections,  discussed  public  matters,  and 
prepared  political  articles  for  the  press.  Samuel  Adams, 
Dawes,  Ruddock,  Dr.  Cooper,  and  others  of  the  leading 
supporters  of  liberty,  were  among  the  early  members.  At  a 
later  period  their  number  was  increased  by  Otis,  Dr.  Warren, 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  158,  161.     Hutchinson,  HI.  138. 


86  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

John  Adams,  Hancock,  Pemberton,  Gray,  Austin,  and  others. 
Their  meetings  were  at  last  more  publicly  held,  and  at  vari- 
ous places ;  sometimes  in  a  small  wooden  building  in  Milk 
Street,  occupied  by  Mr.  Samuel  Shed,  a  respectable  grocer, 
whose  inner  parlor  was  well  known  as  a  rendezvous  of  the 
popular  leaders ;  and  at  others,  in  a  house  near  the  North 
Battery.  They  acted  in  harmony  with  another  political  or- 
ganization known  as  the  Merchants'  Club,  exchanging  with 
them  committees  to  concert  measures  as  to  the  choice  of 
public  officers.  The  Caucus  Club  was  a  more  popular  insti- 
tution than  the  other.  Its  number  was  subsequently  in- 
creased to  above  sixty.  Many  important  moves  resulting  in 
great  political  benefits,  previous  to  the  organization  of  the 
committees  of  correspondence,  originated  at  these  meetings. 
John  Adams,  in  his  contemporary  writings,  repeatedly  men- 
tions "  the  club  "  first  above  referred  to,  and  has  left  sev- 
eral lively  sketches  of  the  principal  characters  attending  it. 
After  his  visit  there  with  Samuel  Adams,  December  23d,  he 
placed  on  record  his  impressions  of  the  members. 

"  The  behavior  of  these  gentlemen  is  very  familiar  and  friendly 
to  each  other,  and  very  polite  and  complaisant  to  strangers.  Gray 
has  a  very  tender  mind,  is  extremely  timid.  He  says  when  he 
meets  a  man  of  the  other  side,  he  talks  against  him ;  when  he  meets 
a  man  of  our  side,  he  opposes  him ;  so  that  he  fears  he  shall  be 
thought  against  everybody,  and  so  everybody  will  be  against  him. 
But  he. hopes  to  prepare  the  way  for  his  escape  at  next  May  from 
an  employment  that  neither  his  abilities  .  nor  circumstances  nor 
turn  of  mind  are  fit  for. 

"Cushing  is  steady  and  constant  and  busy  in  the  interest  of 
liberty  and  the  opposition,  is  famed  for  secrecy  and  his  talent  at  pro- 
curing intelligence. 

"  Adams  is  zealous,  ardent,  and  keen  in  the  cause,  is  always  for 
softness  and  delicacy  and  prudence  where  they  will  do,  but  is  staunch 
and  stiff  and  strict  and  rigid  and  inflexible  in  the  cause. 

"  Otis  is  fiery  and  feverous  ;  his  imagination  flames,  his  passions 
blaze ;  he  is  liable  to  great  inequalities  of  temper ;  sometimes  in 
despondency,  sometimes  in  a  rage.    The  rashnesses  and  imprudencies 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  87 

into  which  his  excess  of  zeal  have  formerly  transported  him  have 
made  him  enemies,  whose  malicious  watch  over  him  occasion  more 
caution  and  more  cunning  and  more  inexplicable  passages  in  his  con- 
duct than  formerly ;  and,  perhaps,  views  at  the  Chair,  or  Board,  or 
possibly  more  expanded  views  beyond  the  Atlantic,  may  mingle  now 
with  his  patriotism. 

"  The  II  Penseroso,  however,  is  discernible  on  the  faces  of  all  four. 

"  Adams,  I  believe,  has  the  most  thorough  understanding  of  liberty 
and  her  resources  in  the  temper  and  character  of  the  people,  though 
not  in  the  law  and  Constitution ;  as  well  as  the  most  habitual,  radical 
love  of  it  of  any  of  them,  as  well  as  the  most  correct,  genteel,  and 
artful  pen.  He  is  a  man  of  refined  policy,  steadfast  integrity,  exqui- 
site humanity,  genteel  erudition,  obliging,  engaging  manners,  real  as 
well  as  professed  piety,  and  a  universal  good  character,  unless  it 
should  be  admitted  that  he  is  too  attentive  to  the  public,  and  not 
enough  so  to  himself  and  his  family."  * 

Up  to  the  late  session  of  the  Legislature,  when  Samuel 
Adams  first  became  a  member,  the  question  of  Parliamentary 
power  had  not  been  fully  raised.  The  course  of  the  Province 
from  the  beginning  of  the  taxation  policy  by  England  had 
hitherto  been  by  remonstrances  and  humble  petitions  for 
relief,  rather  than  assertions  of  the  natural  and  charter 
rights  of  the  Colonies.  The  answer  to  the  Governor's 
speech  and  the  Massachusetts  resolves  were  therefore  re- 
garded as  the  opening  of  a  new  policy.  From  that  time,  the 
expediency  and  right  of  Parliamentary  taxation  ceased  to 
be  argued  in  the  Massachusetts  Assembly,  and  were  tacitly 
resigned  as  no  longer  open  to  discussion. f 

*  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  162). 

t  "  The  firmness  of  the  new  legislator,"  says  Bancroft  (V.  350),  "was  sus- 
tained by  the  unwavering  confidence  of  the  people  of  Boston,  beyond  what 
was  given  to  any  of  his  colleagues;  and  the  vacillation  of  Otis,  increasing 
with  his  infirmities,  ceased  to  be  of  public  importance.  Massachusetts  never 
again  questioned  with  the  British  ministry  the  amount  of  a  practical  tax,  or 
the  inexpediency  of  taxation  by  Parliament,  or  the  propriety  of  an  American 
representation  in  that  body." 

Hutchinson  was  fully  convinced  that  the  state  papers  of  the  late  session 
practically  denied  Parliamentary  supremacy  in  the  Colonies.     He  says,  just 


CHAPTER   IV. 


Differences  in  Political  Opinion  between  Otis  and  Adams.  —  Otis  advocated 
an  American  Representation  in  Parliament,  and  sustains  the  Right  of  Par- 
liament to  Tax  the  Colonies.  —  Plans  for  such  a  Representation.  —  Adams 
denies  the  Practicability  of  a  Fair  Representation,  and  disproves  the  Right 
of  Taxation.  —  Controlling  Influence  of  Adams  in  the  Assembly.  —  Testi- . 
mony  of  Contemporaries,  —  ThcTiirst  Advocate  of  American  Independence.  \ 
—  His  Letters  to  Gentlemen  in  England  in  behalf  of  the  Colonies.  \ 

The  differences  of  opinion  existing  between  James  Otis 
and  Samuel  Adams,  the  two  principal  figures  of  this  period, 
require  special  explanation ;  particularly  as  this  contrast  in 
policy  has  not  been  generally  understood,  though  truthfully 
pictured  in  the  contemporary  delineation  by  the  observant 
John  Adams,  which  has  been  already  quoted.  The  learning, 
zeal,  and  eloquence  of  Otis,  added  to  his  great  ability  and 
devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the  Province,  made  him  ever 
popular  with  his  townsmen,  who  cherished  a  regard  for  him 
long  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  of  service,  and  loved  to 
place  him  in  positions  where  his  restless  spirit  would  be 
calmed  by  such  attentions.  Until  1765  he  was  the  leader 
of  the  debates  in  the  House.  But  thenceforward  his  opin- 
ions grew  uncertain,  and  vacillated  as  circumstances  altered. 
His  fervid  eloquence  was  always  at  the  command  of  his 
country,  but  the  direction  of  its  torrent  could  not  be  relied 
on  at  all  times. 

The  project  of   sending  representatives  to  Parliament 

five  years  afterwards,  in  a  letter  to  Bernard  (October  20,  1770) :  "Had  every 
man  who  openly  asserted  that  Parliament  was  not  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
whole  Empire  been  subjected  to  part  of  the  penalties  of  the  statute  of  prcmu- 
nire,  and  every  man  concerned  in  every  combination  to  resist  the  execution  of 
an  act  of  Parliament  been  subjected  to  the  whole  penalties  five  years  ago,  I 
think  that  few  people  would  have  run  the  risk  of  them." 


Dec,  1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  89 

from  the  Colonies,  a  point  on  which  Otis  and  Adams  essen- 
tially differed,  was  suggested  during  the  Stamp  Act  difficul- 
ties, and  found  advocates  in  both  countries.  It  appears  to 
have  been  first  publicly  written  upon  by  the  historian  Old- 
mixon,  and  was  afterwards  more  deliberately  considered  and 
espoused  by  Dr.  Franklin  and  others.  Until  the  last  stages 
of  the  controversy  this  measure  was  sincerely  urged  by  dis- 
tinguished writers,  among  whom  was  Adam  Smith,  who 
recommended  that  the  number  of  American  representatives 
should  be  proportioned  to  the  produce  of  American  tax- 
ation. 

A  pamphlet  *  was  published  in  London  in  1770,  and  re- 
viewed in  the  Monthly  Eegister,  proposing  "that  about 
fourscore  commissioners  from  the  Colonies  should  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  British  House  of  Commons,  to  be  chosen 
annually,  to  counterbalance  the  inconveniency  of  their  re- 
mote distance  from  their  constituents,  who  by  this  means 
will  have  a  frequent  check  over  them  that  will  preserve 
their  attention  to  the  interests  of  the  places  for  which  they 
serve ;  that  their  representative  power,  to  prevent  accident, 
should  continue  after  the  expiration  of  the  year,  until  the 
new  commission  should  renew  their  powers,  or  new  com- 
missioners arriving,  should  supersede  them;  and  that  no 
law  relating  to  the  Colonies  should  pass  until  one  year  after 
the  reading  of  the  bill." 

"  These,"  continues  the  reviewer,  "  are  the  outlines  of  the  plan  of 
representation,  which  is  proposed  in  a  dispassionate,  sensible  manner ; 
and  could  it  be  digested  into  a  feasible,  regular  system,  so  as  to  ob- 
viate the  objections  arising  from  the  interposition  of  a  vast  ocean,  it 
might  happily  tend  much  towards  that  consummation  which  is  so 
devoutly  to  be  wished." 

In  1774  an  ably  written  pamphlet  appeared  in  England, 
strongly  urging  an  American  representation. 

* 

*  "  Considerations  on  the  Expediency  of  admitting  Representatives  from  the 
American  Colonies  into  the  British  House  of  Commons."  London,  1770,  8°. 
pp.  41. 


90  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  pec. 

"  The  Legislature  of  this  kingdom,"  says  the  author,  "  cannot  pos- 
sibly depart  from  any  part  of  its  supremacy  over  the  Colonies ;  but 
it  is  in  the  power  of  the  Colonies  to  share  in  that  supremacy.  If 
they  complain  of  being  taxed  without  having  the  privilege  of  send- 
ing members  to  Parliament,  let  them  be  represented.  Nay,  more ; 
let  their  representation  increase  in  proportion  to  the  revenue  they 

shall  furnish." 

i 
During  the  war,  the  British  government,  with  concession 

more  or  less  sincere,  offered  to  the  people  of  America  a  share 
in  Parliamentary  representation,  together  with  the  redress 
of  all  grievances.  Andrew  Eliot  alludes  to  it  in  a  letter  to 
Thomas  Hollis  in  the  winter  of  1769,*  and  briefly  shows  the 
idea  to  be  impracticable.  A  plan,  supposed  to  have  been 
endorsed  by  the  King,  proposing  that  America  should  be 
governed  by  a  Congress  of  American  peers,  in  number  not 
to  exceed  two  hundred,  to  be  appointed  by  the  Crown,  was 
conveyed  to  Franklin  and  John  Adams  while  in  France  in 
1778.  Among  the  names  of  eminent  Americans  to  be  thus 
honored  were  Franklin,  Washington,  Samuel  Adams,  and 
Hancock,  as  having  stood  foremost,  and  suffered  most  in  the 
contest. f  Even  towards  the  close  of  the  war,  after  the  cap- 
ture of  Cornwallis,  this  dream  was  indulged,  when,  as  Cur- 
wen  says  in  his  diary,  the  ministerial  plan  was  "  to  govern 
America  by  a  Lord  Lieutenant  and  create  nobility ;  and  if 
she  will  not  agree  to  Great  Britain's  proposal,  to  make  a 
partition  treaty  of  the  Colonies  with  France,  to  whom  the 
Northern  Colonies  and  Canada  would  be  ceded,  the  Southern 
Colonies  remaining  to  Great  Britain."  £  One  of  the  ideas 
of  the  Loyalists  in  the  first  Congress  in  1774  was  a  grand 
Colonial  Council  to  act  in  conjunction  with  the  British 
Parliament  to  regulate  American  affairs.  Galloway,  who 
fathered  this  scheme,  admitted  in  his  subsequent  writings 
that  it  was  defeated  through  the  efforts  of  Samuel  Adams. 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Society's  Collections,  4th  Series,  IV.  439. 
+  John  Adams's  Works,  III.  178.     July,  1778. 
X  Curwen's  Journal,  March,  1782. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  91 

.  The  subject  had  been  seriously  considered  by  the  royal 
governors,  Bernard  and  Hutchinson.  Says  the  latter,  writ- 
ing to  his  friend  in  England,  October,  1770  :  — 

"  I  can  say  little  or  nothing  in  answer  to  the  queries  you  propose, 
more  than  what  has  often  passed  in  conversation  between  us.  You 
know  we  have  both  wished  for  a  second  branch  of  the  Legislature 
more  analogous  to  the  House  of  Lords  than  that  in  the  royal  gov- 
ernment, or  that  in  the  Massachusetts,  but  have  found  invincible 
difficulties  attending  every  projection." 

Hutchinson  and  Bernard  undoubtedly  at  one  time  hoped 
to  attain  rank  in  an  American  peerage  which  might  result 
from  the  disputes  on  taxation  and  representation.  Even 
before  the  Stamp  Act,  Bernard,  as  shown  by  his  letters  to 
Lord  Halifax,  had  formed  plans  for  a  new  colonial  arrange- 
ment, a  modification  of  the  Massachusetts  charter,  and  the 
establishment  of  an  order  of  nobility  for  life.*  A  few  years 
later  he  succeeded  in  getting  himself  knighted,  but  Hutchin- 
son had  less  influence  at  court. 

At  the  commencement  of  the  troubles  between  the  parent 
state  and  the  Colonies,  James  Otis  urged  an  American  rep- 
resentation in  the  British  Parliament,  both  in  his  speeches 
in  the  Assembly  and  in  his  political  essays.  Whether  he 
had  matured  any  specific  plan  is  not  known.  If  by  a  colo- 
nial representation  the  supreme  power  of  Parliament  over 
the  Colonies  was  to  have  been  established,  it  would  at  the 
same  time  have  annihilated  their  Provincial  Assemblies,  and 
rendered  their  charters  absolutely  nugatory.  He  was  long 
in  favor  of  "  a  general  union  of  all  parts  of  the  British  em- 
pire, under  an  equal  and  uniform  direction  and  system  of 
laws."  Had  the  Colonies  sent  representatives  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  suoceeded  in  hitting  upon  an  equitable 
proportion  in  point  of  numbers,  it  would  yet  not  have  been 
a  fair  representation.  The  British  Legislature  consisted 
of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  but  the  Colonies  would  have 

*  Bancroft,  V.  201-225. 


92  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

had  a  voice  only  in  one  branch,  unless  to  perfect  the  plan  it 
was  really  intended  to  create  an  American  nobility,  and 
American  peers  were  to  compose  a  part  of  the  House  of 
Lords  on  a  plan  of  union  similar  to  that  with  Scotland.  In 
whatever  light  the  project  is  viewed,  it  was  visionary,  and 
was  so  considered  by  those  who  sided  with  Samuel  Adams 
in  his  opposition  to  the  measure. 

Hutchinson  says  that  Otis  "  always  admitted  the  Parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain  to  be  the  supreme  Legislature  of  the 
whole  empire,  and  every  act  made  to  respect  all  parts  of 
the  empire  to  be  wholly  obligatory  upon  every  part,  whether 
represented  or  not ;  but  he  insisted  that  every  part  had  a 
claim  to  representation,  and  that  it  was  an  unconstitutional 
exercise  of  the  power  of  Parliament  to  tax  any  part,  and 
nevertheless  to  deny  it  a  share  in  the  representation." 

Otis  also  said  in  the  Assembly,  "  that  he  had  fully  informed 
himself  of  the  relation  between  Great  Britain  and  her  Colo- 
nies, and  was  convinced  that  the  power  of  Parliament  over 
her  Colonies  was  absolute,  with  this  qualification,  that  they 
ought  not  to  tax  them  until  they  allowed  them  to  send 
representatives ;  and  that  if  the  Colonies  had  representatives, 
the  power  of  Parliament  would  be  as  perfect  over  America 
as  England.  He  then  argued  for  an  American  representa- 
tion." * 

In  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonists,"  he  says :  — 

"  Besides  the  equity  of  a  representation  in  Parliament,  a  thousand 
advantages  would  result  from  it.     It  would  be  the  most  effectual 

*  Gordon's  Hist.,  I.  229.  He  says  a  member  remarked,  "  that,  as  they  were 
determined  to  have  representatives,  he  begged  leave  to  recommend  a  merchant 
who  would  undertake  to  carry  their  representatives  to  England  for  half  what 
they  would  sell  for  when  they  got  there."  This  seems  to  show  that  Gordon 
had  access  to  Bernard's  letters  in  London,  for  the  anecdote  is  originally  told  by 
the  Governor  in  a  letter  to  the  Ministry,  January  28,  1768.  The  argument 
of  Otis,  as  here  reported,  was,  that  a  representation  in  Parliament  had  become 
a  measure  necessary  to  Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies  for  healing  the  existing 
difficulties.  In  this  same  letter  Bernard  advises  to  take  the  Colonists  at  their 
word,  and  let  them  have  a  representation. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  93 

means  of  giving  those  of  both  countries  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
each  other's  interest,  as  well  as  that  of  the  whole,  which  are  insep- 
arable." 

Samuel  Adams  held  exactly  the  opposite  doctrine.  He 
considered  a  fair  representation  in  Parliament  to  be  utterly 
impossible,  and  that  the  purpose  contemplated  by  the  scheme  N 
could  never  be  realized.  He  opposed  it  in  the  House,  in; 
his  publio  essays  and  state  papers,  and  to  his  correspondents, 
in  England.  In  the  Massachusetts  Resolves  he  declares  rep- 
resentation to  be  impracticable.  In  his  letter  to  "  G.  W." 
he  briefly  upsets  the  theory,  and  completely  exposes  its  fal- 
lacy in  a  letter  written  about  the  same  time  to  Deberdt, 
extracts  from  which  are  given  at  the  close  of  this  chapter. 
To  Deberdt,  in  1768,  he  writes  that  "  there  is  nothing  which 
the  Colonies  would  more  dread"  than  a  representation  in 
Parliament.*  In  fact  he  never  ceased  to  believe  the  plan 
preposterous  and  chimerical;  and  even  in  the  Congress 
preceding  the  Declaration  of  Independence  he  combated  the 
same  schemes.  There  is  matter  for  curious  speculation  in 
the  question  how  long  the  Colonists  would  have  remained 
contented  under  the  proposed  new  system.  All  the  Prov- 
inces might  not  have  assented  to  the  change,  in  which  case 
those  who  did  would  sooner  or  later  have  incurred  the  en- 
mity of  the  others.  But  if  it  had  been  universally  adopted, 
the  several  delegations  would  eventually  have  come  into 
conflict  as  to  the  application  of  any  general  laws  for  the 
regulation  of  the  whole.  Pour  elected  by  each  would  have 
given  an  aggregate  of  fifty-two  members,  who  could  not 
long  have  acted  in  harmony  as  representatives  of  such 
widely  separated  regions,  differing  so  essentially  in  produc- 
tions, climate,  and  inhabitants.  Each  Province  would  have 
sent  its  best  known  and  ablest  men.  Massachusetts  would 
probably  have  been  represented  in  part  from  among  the 
delegates  to  the  late  New  York  Congress,  including  Otis ; 

*  See  also  his  letters  in  the  True  Sentiments  of  America,  January  and 
February,  1768,  quoted  hereafter  in  Chap.  VII. 


94  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  Gridley,  Oliver,  and  Hutchinson 
would  have  been  candidates.  Regarded  in  the  light  of  a 
concession  to  the  Provinces,  the  effect  might  have  been  to 
delay  awhile  the  revenue  disputes  with  the  mother  country  ; 
but  when  shown  to  be  impracticable  and  unequal,  as  it 
must  soon  have  proved  itself,  the  struggle  and  separation 
would  as  certainly  have  resulted. 

Another  vital  point  of  difference  between  Otis  and 
Adams  was  on  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  authority  of 
Parliament  over  the  Colonies.  Their  views  on  the  subject 
were  diametrically  opposed.  Otis  maintained,  "  as  it  was 
agreed  on  all  hands  the  Crown  alone  could  not  impose  taxes 
and  impositions  on  trade  and  other  property,  we  should  be 
justifiable  in  refusing  to  pay  them,  but  must  and  ought  to 
yield  obedience  to  an  act  of  Parliament,  though  erroneous, 
till  repealed.' ' 

"  It  is  the  duty  of  all,"  said  he,  "  humbly  and  silently  to  acqui- 
esce in  the  decisions  of  the  supreme  Legislature.  Nine  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  in  a  thousand  of  the  Colonists  will  never  once  en- 
tertain a  thought  but  of  submission  to  our  sovereign,  and  to  the  au- 
thority of  Parliament,  in  all  possible  contingencies."  "They  un- 
doubtedly have  the  right  to  levy  internal  taxes  on  the  Colonies." 
"  I  detest  and  abhor  the  thought  of  making  a  question  of  jurisdic- 
tion." 

"  The  power  of  Parliament  is  uncontrollable  but  by  themselves, 
and  we  must  obey.  They  only  can  repeal  their  own  acts.  There 
would  be  an  end  of  all  government  if  one  or  a  number  of  subjects 
or  subordinate  provinces  should  take  upon  them  so  far  to  judge  of 
the  justice  of  an  act  of  Parliament  as  to  refuse  obedience  to  it.  If 
there  was  nothing  else  to  restrain  such  a  step,  prudence  ought  to  do 
it ;  for  forcibly  resisting  the  Parliament  and  the  King's  laws  is  high 
treason.  Therefore  let  the  Parliament  lay  what  burdens  they 
please  on  us,  we  must,  it  is  our  duty  to,  submit,  and  patiently  bear 
them  till  they  relieve  us."# 

"  It  is  certain  that  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  hath  a  just, 

*  "Writings  of  Otis  in  1765.  "  Brief  Remarks."  "Vindication  of  the  British 
Colonies,"  &c.     See  also  Bancroft.  V.  271  -273 :  and  VI.  118. 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  95 

clear,  equitable,  and  constitutional  power  and  authority  to  impose 
taxes  on  the  Colonies,  internal  and  external,  on  lands  as  well  as  on 
trade." 

These  are  only  some  of  the  instances  where  James  Otis 
asserts  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax.  the  Colonies.  The 
firmest  advocates  of  the  arbitrary  measures  of  the  adminis- 
tration, its  warmest  apologists,  went  no  further  than  Otis 
in  supporting  that  right.  The  Governor  himself  in  his 
speech  of  September  25th  was  not  more  explicit :  — 

"  I  trust,"  he  says,  "  that  the  supremacy  of  that  Parliament  over 
all  the  members  of  their  wide  and  diffused  empire  never  was,  and 
never  will  be,  denied  within  these  walls."  "  The  right  of  the  Par- 
liament of  Great  Britain  to  make  laws  for  the  American  Colonies, 
however  it  has  been  controverted  in  America,  remains  indisputable 
at  Westminster.  If  it  is  yet  to  be  made  a  question,  who  shall  de- 
cide it  but  the  Parliament  ?  " 

Such  were  precisely  the  views  of  Otis,  which  he  long  ad- 
hered to.  He  appears  to  have  limited  himself  to  advocating 
the  repeal  of  a  grievous  and  unconstitutional  act ;  when  this 
could  not  be  effected,  no  steps  could,  in  his  opinion,  be 
taken  beyond  it  without  transgressing  the  law. 

The  opinion  of  Adams  on  the  nature  and  extent  of  Parlia- 
mentary authority  was  unvarying  throughout  his  career. 
From  his  college  thesis  in  1743,  when  he  affirmed  that  "  it 
is  lawful  to  resist  the  supreme  magistrate  if  the  Common- 
wealth cannot  be  otherwise  preserved,' '  to  the  close  of  the 
arguments  with  the  royal  Governors,  through  a  period  of 
more  than  thirty  years,  his  sentiments  were  uniform  and  de- 
cided. 

He  maintained  that  an  unconstitutional  act  was  ipso  facto 
null  and  void ;  *  that  the  Constitution  was  the  paramount 
law  of  the  land,  to  which  every  department  of  the  govern- 
ment was  separately  and  collectively  subject ;  and  that  when 

*.See  Samuel  Adams  as  "  Candidus  "  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  January, 
1772,  quoted  in  Chap.  XXI. 


96  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Dec. 


a  law  was  enacted  obviously  repugnant  to  its  true  spirit  and 
principles,  and  the  constitutional  mode  of  redress  by  peti- 
tion and  remonstrance  failed  to  obtain  its  repeal,  obedience 
could  not  be  lawfully  enforced,  and  to  evade  or  resist  it 
was  neither  morally  nor  politically  wrong.  Parliament,  he 
held,  had  no  authority  whatever  over  the  internal  concerns 
of  the  Colonies,  but  this  power  resided  exclusively  in  the 
the  respective  Provincial  Assemblies. 

One  of  his  letters  to  a  correspondent  in  London,  written 
December  20th,  1765,  expresses  his  views  as  to  Parliamentary 
authority.  The  name  of  the  recipient  is  unknown,  but  that 
this  and  others  of  the  numerous  letters  of  Adams  were  now 
instrumental  with  persons  in  authority  in  England  in  pro- 
curing the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt. 

"  But  there  is  another  consideration  which  renders  this  tax  still 
more  obnoxious  to  the  Colonies,  and  that  is,  it  totally  annihilates 
their  essential  rights  as  British  subjects.  The  first  settlers  of  New 
England  had  been  persecuted  in  England  at  a  time  when  the  nation 
was  intoxicated  with  bigotry  and  the  ideas  of  ecclesiastical  tyranny. 
This  induced  them  to  cross  an  untried  ocean,  and  take  shelter  in  a 
dreary  wilderness.  Immediately  after  their  arrival,  they  recognized 
their  allegiance  to  the  English  Bang,  and  he  declared  them  entitled 
to  all  the  rights,  liberties,  and  immunities  of  natural-born  subjects. 
The  other  Colonies  are  by  charter  or  other  royal  institutions  thus 
acknowledged.  Indeed,  as  they  were  good  subjects  in  England,  and 
were  not  prohibited  to  leave  the  kingdom,  their  removal  could  not 
disenfranchise  them,  although  they  were  told  by  a  haughty  Ba- 
shaw,* —  you  know  whom  I  mean,  —  they  must  not  expect  their 
liberties  would  follow  them  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  They  un- 
doubtedly brought  with  them  the  rights  and  laws  of  the  mother 
state.  The  British  Constitution  makes  no  distinction  between  good 
subjects  with  regard  to  liberty.  To  talk  of  British  subjects  who  are 
free,  and  of  other  British  subjects  who  are  not  free,  is  absurd.    They 

*  Gov.  Dudley  in  1702.  See  also  letter  to  Deberdt,  January  6th,  1768, 
quoted  in  Chap.  VII. 


1765.]    .  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  97 

are  all  alike  free.  The  British  Constitution  is  founded  in  the  princi- 
ples of  nature  and  reason.  It  admits  of  no  more  power  over  the 
subject  than  is  necessary  for  the  support  of  government,  which  was 
originally  designed  for  the  preservation  of  the  inalienable  rights  of 
nature.  It  engages  to  all  men  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  rights 
who  take  refuge  in  her  bosom.  Foreigners  who  have  resided  a  cer 
tain  time,  and  have  behaved  well,  and  have  taken  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance, by  act  of  Parliament  are  declared  to  be  as  free  as  natural- 
born  subjects  (in  which  act,  it  is  to  be  observed,  the  Colonies  are 
considered  such).  And  even  conquered  people,  after  swearing  alle- 
giance, are  entitled  to  the  same  honor  and  freedom." 

The  subject  is  so  often  treated  in  lengthy  state  papers  by 
Samuel  Adams,  that  extended  quotations  here  would  be  need- 
less to  explain  his  views.  The  Boston  Instructions  in  May, 
1764,  may  be  taken  as  a  text  for  his  whole  subsequent  ca- 
reer. Otis  and  Adams,  however,  were  generally  on  friendly 
terms,  despite  these  differences  of  opinion.  Their  relation- 
ship was  too  strong  to  be  affected  by  occasional  collisions  of 
sentiment.  Otis,  in  most  cases,  acted  with  the  Whig  party, 
and  rendered  eminent  service  to  the  cause,  though  his  orig- 
inal principles  were  not  those  which  gave  independence  to 
the  Colonies.  He  seems  to  have  changed  his  opinions  to 
some  extent  in  the  latter  part  of  1765,  when  (in  December) 
he  is  quoted  by  Bancroft  as  saying  of  the  Stamp  Act,  "  if 
they  do  not  repeal  it,  we  will  repeal  it  ourselves,"  and  when 
he  led  and  shared  the  most  excited  opposition.*  For  several 
years  afterwards,  he  was  placed  nominally  at  the  head  of 
committees,  and  none  more  than  he  loathed  and  denounced 
the  corrupt  crown  officers ;  but  his  opinions  from  this  time 
became  more  and  more  variable,  and  few  if  any  state  papers 
can  be  thenceforth  claimed  for  him.f 

The  impulse  given  by  Samuel  Adams  to  the  cause  of 
liberty,  and  his  influence  in  the  Legislature,  is  apparent 

*  Bradford  says  Otis  was  the  leading  member  of  the  House  from  1763  to; 
1766. 

t  Bancroft,  VI.  121. 
vol.  i.  7 


98  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  pec. 

from  the  time  he  became  a  member.  The  elder  Samuel 
Dexter,  who  was  generally  with  him  on  important  commit- 
tees, asserted  in  after  years,  from  his  own  personal  knowledge, 
that  from  Samuel  Adams's  entrance  into  the  House,  in  1765, 
he  was  the  soul  of  that  body,  and  its  guide  and  director 
through  the  storms  of  the  succeeding  nine  years,  until  the 
dissolution  of  the  royal  authority  in  Massachusetts.  From 
that  hour,  he  rose  naturally,  at  once,  and  by  general  assent, 
to  the  position  belonging  by  right  to  his  vigorous  mind  and 
firmness  of  character.  No  person  can  read  the  state  papers 
of  the  Assembly,  through  the  ensuing  nine  years  up  to  that 
of  the  first  Congress,  without  recognizing  in  many  of  them 
his  pervading  genius  and  the  productions  of  his  practised 
pen.  He  became  immediately  the  leader  of  the  Legislature, 
the  beacon  which  illumined  its  counsels  in  its  darkest  periods. 
He  originated  the  most  important  measures,  and  bent  his  en- 
ergies and  invincible  will  to  their  accomplishment. 

Governor  Bernard  ruefully  pointed  to  the  surprising 
change  in  the  legislative  proceedings  in  the  October  session 
of  this  year.  "Your  answer  to  my  speech,,,  he  says  to 
the  House,  "  is  conceived  in  terms  so  different  from  what 
you  have  been  used  to  address  me  with,  that  I  know  not 
how  to  account  for  it,  but  from  the  disordered  state  of  the 
Province,  which  affects  its  very  counsels.' '  *  And  in  his  re- 
ply a  few  years  later  to  the  petition  of  the  Assembly  for  his 
removal  from  office,  he  says  that  "  a  very  good  understand- 
ing and  agreement  of  sentiment  continually  prevailed  be- 
tween the  Governor  and  the  Assembly,  until  the  opposition 
to  the  Stamp  Act,  which  began  in  1765." 

Hutchinson,  who  names  Samuel  Adams  as  the  author  of 
the  Massachusetts  Resolves  says :  — 

"  They  seem  to  be  designed  as  a  sort  of  Magna  Charta,  or  rather 
a  declaration  of  the  fundamentals  of  the  Constitution."  "  There  is 
no  acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  Parliament  in  any  case 
whatever."     "  These  resolves  were  passed  when  three  fourths  of  the 

*  Journals  of  the  House,  Nov.  8,  1765. 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  99 

members  of  the  House  were  the  same  persons  who  had  been  mem- 
bers the  last  year.  The  House  then  declared  it  to  be  their  duty  to 
yield  obedience,  even  to  a  tax  act,  until  it  should  be  repealed.  In- 
consistencies in  the  votes  and  proceedings  of  such  bodies  of  men  are 
common.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  body  is  governed  by  a  few 
of  its  members,  sometimes  by  a  single  member."  "  They  are  agree- 
able to  his*  [Samuel  Adams's]  professed  principles,  which  he  owned 
without  reserve  in  private  discourse  to  be  independency ;  and  from 
time  to  time  he  made  advances  towards  it  in  public  as  far  as  would 
serve  the  great  purpose  of  attaining  to  it.  To  his  influence  may  be 
attributed  the  great  advance  made  in  this  session."  * 

This  passage  was  written  by  the  mortal  enemy  of  Samuel 
Adams,  who,  in  the  hearty  dislike  he  entertained  for  him, 
honestly  believed  that  these  facts  were  recorded  to  his  dis- 
grace. Yet  at  this  day,  we  feel  that  he  could  have  no 
nobler  monument  or  more  honorable  distinction. 

During  the  long  interval  of  inactivity  caused  by  the  cessa- 
tion of  business,  Mr.  Adams  employed  his  pen  in  the  cause 
he  loved  to  defend.  Among  his  papers  are  found  letters, 
some  of  them  partially  obliterated  by  time  or  carelessness  so 
as  to  be  nearly  illegible.  The  few  which  have  been  restored 
prove  to  be  directed  to  persons  in  England  on  the  subject  of 
the  public  grievances.  One,  over  his  own  signature,  dated 
November  13th,  1765,  is  addressed  to  "  G.  W.,  London,"  of 
whose  "  good  will  to  mankind,  and  particular  regard  to  New 
England,' '  the  writer  says  he  had  long  been  convinced,  and 
continues :  — 

"  The  free  access  which  I  am  informed  you  have  to  some  eminent 
personages  may  put  it  in  your  power  to  do  us  offices  of  singular 
kindness.  New  England  has  had  the  misfortune  of  having  many 
enemies,  but  He  that  planted  the  vine  seems  hitherto  to  have  had 
a  watchful  eye  over  it. 

"  Nothing  could  have  given  greater  disgust  than  the  Stamp  Act. 
The  people  are  in  consternation  from  one  end  of  the  continent  to 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  134,  135. 


100  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

the  other.  Whatever  the  favorers  of  the  act  on  your  side  of  the 
water  may  apprehend,  it  certainly  is  esteemed  a  grievance  in  the 
opinions  of  many  thousands  of  as  loyal  and  quiet  subjects  as  any 
under  the  King's  government. 

"  I  wish  some  genius  of  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth's  goodness  and 
penetration  might  find  leisure  particularly  to  attend  to  this  matter, 
in  which  I  think  Great  Britain  herself,  as  well  as  her  Colonies,  is 
deeply  interested.  We  stand  in  great  need  of  some  such  advocate 
in  England,  as  the  Governor  of  this  Province  has  declared  in  a 
message  delivered  to  the  House  of  Representatives  last  week,  that 
he  has  no  pretence  to  interpose  in  this  business,  and  that  he  does  not 
think  that  any  governor  on  the  continent  has  presumed  to  express 
his  sentiments  against  the  act ;  which  case  may  be  easily  supposed, 
for  it  is  not  likely  that  any  gentleman  in  commission  would  choose 
to  express  his  sentiments  against  what  is  said  to  be  a  favorite  point 
with  a  minister.  It  is,  however,  amusing,  that  those  who  are  substi- 
tuted by  his  Majesty  to  be  the  patrons  of  his  subjects  in  the  several 
Colonies  should  think  themselves  to  be  under  this  restraint.  The 
Ministry  and  the  Parliament  no  doubt  had  the  good  of  the  Colonies 
as  well  as  the  nation  in  view.  With  respect  to  the  Colonies,  they 
are  at  so  great  a  distance,  and  having  none  in  England  to  represent 
them,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at  if  this  interest  should  be  sometimes 
mistaken.  The  opinion  of  a  governor  will  no  doubt  be  of  great 
weight  and  candidly  received ;  if  all  of  them  are  silent,  the  applica- 
tions of  the  people  will  be  thought  to  be  of  little  importance.  But 
should  these  gentlemen,  with  the  design  to  please  their  superiors, 
express  their  minds  in  favor  of  every  measure,  the  people's  uneasiness 
might  then  be  imputed  to  a  discontented  or  even  a  factious  humor  ; 
and  considering  the  imperfection  of  human  nature,  this  inclination 
to  flatter  a  superior  is  at  least  a  possible  supposition. 

"  In  looking  over  one  of  the  latest  London  newspapers,  I  find  the 
following  article,  viz:  'The  disputes  continually  arising  in  the 
American  Colonies,  joined  to  the  struggles  they  make  for  indepen- 
dence, it  is  thought  will  induce  the  British  Legislature  to  new  model 
their  system  of  government,  and  to  allow  them  representatives  in 
the  great  councils  of  the  nation.'  Whether  the  writer  of  this  piece 
of  intelligence  meant  only  to  arouse  the  nation,  I  am  not  able  to  say. 
He  has  endeavored  to  establish  two  facts,  one  of  which  at  least  is 


1765.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  101 

without  any  foundation.  That  there  are  frequent  disputes  between 
adjoining  Colonies  about  their  dividing  line  is  true ;  but  we  hope  they 
may  be  settled  as  they  have  always  heretofore  been,  without  the  ne- 
cessity of  altering  their  system  of  government.  A  very  celebrated 
writer,  the  author  of  the  Spirit  of  Laws,  has  defined  political  liberty 
to  be  '  a  tranquillity  of  mind,  arising  from  the  opinion  which  each 
man  has  of  his  own  safety.'  Now  if  a  number  of  Colonies  are  to 
have  their  system  of  government  new  modelled  at  discretion,  or  even 
to  be  threatened  with  it,  because  such  disputes,  which  subsist  wher- 
ever society  is,  take  place  among  them,  there  can  never  be  among 
them  any  opinion  of  their  safety,  from  which  should  arise  a  tran- 
quillity of  mind,  and  consequently  there  can  -  be  no  liberty  accord- 
ing to  the  definition  of  the  before-mentioned  learned  author.  This 
news-writer  shoots  his  bow  at  a  venture.  Where  did  he  learn  that 
the  Colonies  were  struggling  for  independence  ?  The  contrary  is 
most  certainly  true.  You,  sir,  can  be  a  witness  to  the  loyalty  of  the 
Colonies  and  their  affection  for  the  mother  country.  There  is  at 
present  no  appearance  of  such  a  disposition  as  this  writer  would 
insinuate,  much  less  a  struggle  for  independence ;  and  I  dare  say  there 
never  will  be,  unless  Great  Britain  shall  exert  her  power  to  destroy 
their  liberties.  This  we  hope  will  never  be  done.  He  tells  us  '  that 
we  are  to  be  allowed  representatives  in  the  great  councils  of  the 
nation/  which  implies  that  we  have  no  representative  there  at  pres- 
ent. This  is  a  main  argument  against  a  constitutional  right  of  Par- 
liament to  tax  us.  It  is  built  upon  one  of  the  main  pillars  of  the 
British  Constitution, — the  right  of  representation.  If  the  subject  has 
a  constitutional  right  to  be  represented  in  the  body  that  taxes  him, 
it  is  but  altering  the  expression  of  the  same  sentiment  to  say  there 
can  be  no  constitutional  right  to  tax  the  subject  in  a  body  where  he 
is  not  represented.  When  the  question  is  asked,  Will  any  one  deny 
that  the  Parliament  hath  a  right  to  tax  the  Colonies  ?  it  needs  only 
to  ask  again,  Are  the  Colonies  represented  in  Parliament?  The 
writers  against  the  Colonies,  when  they  have  been  thus  pressed,  have 
been  obliged  to  adopt  the  word  '  virtually ' ;  but  we  must  first  under- 
stand what  they  mean  by  being  virtually  represented,  before  we  can 
give  their  doctrine  a  serious  consideration.*     There  is  one  thing, 

*  If  the  gentleman  to  whom  this  letter  was  addressed  had  that  "  access  to 
eminent  personages,"  indicated  by  Mr.  Adams,  it  would  be  interesting  to 


102  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

however,  which  perhaps  may  need  explanation.  The  Colonies  de- 
pend upon  it.  As  their  argument  against  being  taxed  by  the  Par- 
liament because  they  are  not  represented  must  be  allowed  to  be 
good,  to  be  consistent  with  the  British  Constitution,  yet  they  are  far 
from  desiring  a  representation  for  this  reason  only,  —  because  they 
judge  it  impracticable  for  them  to  be  equally  and  fully  represented  in 
Parliament.  Many  things  might  be  said  to  justify  such  an  opinion, 
which  perhaps  may  occasion  my  troubling  you  with  another  letter ; 
in  the  mean  time,  allow  me  just  to  add  that  the  only  way  to  preserve 
to  the  Colonists  their  rights  as  British  subjects,  consistent  with  their 
acknowledged  subordination  to  the  supreme  Legislature  of  Great 
Britain,  as  it  appears  to  me,  is  to  continue  the  same  power  of  gov- 
ernment which  they  have  hitherto  been  used  to,  with  the  same 
checks  and  no  other.    This  is  all  they  desire." 

Another  letter,  directed  to  "  J.  SL,  Esq.,"  in  London,  writ- 
ten December  20th,  1765,  reviews  the  occurrences  in  the 
Colonies  from  the  first  notice  of  the  intended  Stamp  Act. 
The  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed  has  not  been  ascer^' 
tained,  but  he  was  some  gentleman  of  influence,  who  had 
access  to  those  in  power.  It  was  intended  to  prevent  any 
erroneous  impressions  arising  from  exaggerated  statements 
of  the  riotous  proceedings  in  Boston.  These  disorders  were 
regretted  by  the  respectable  class  of  people ;  but  the  Governor 
and  his  friends  had  charged  them  indiscriminately  upon  the 

know  whether  this  and  other  communications  on  the  same  subject  were  not 
shown  to  Pitt.  Two  months  after  it  was  written  and  when  it  had  been  in 
England  three  or  four  weeks,  the  "  Great  Commoner  *'  exposed  the  absurdity 
of  a  virtual  representation  in  Parliament. 

"  There  is  an  idea/'  said  he,  "  in  some,  that  the  Colonies  are  virtually  repre- 
sented in  this  House.  I  would  fain  know  by  whom  an  American  is  represented 
here.  Is  he  represented  by  any  knight  of  the  shire  in  any  county  in  this  king- 
dom1? Would  to  God  that  respectable  representation  was  augmented  to  a 
greater  number.  Or  will  you  tell  him  that  he  is  represented  by  any  represen- 
tative of  a  borough,  which  perhaps  no  man  ever  saw  ?  This  is  what  is  called 
the  rotten  part  of  a  constitution.  It  cannot  endure  a  century.  If  it  does  not 
drop,  it  must  be  amputated.  The  idea  of  a  virtual  representation  of  America 
in  this  House  is  the  most  contemptible  idea  that  ever  entered  into  the  heart  of  a 
man.  It  does  not  deserve  a  serious  refutation."  —  Debates  in  Parliament,  Jan. 
14,  1766. 


1765.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  103 

.  liberty  party,  whom  they  represented  as  enemies  of  law  and 
order.  In  his  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  October  session 
he  had  implied  this,  and  attempted  to  throw  the  odinm 
upon  all  classes  of  the  Province.  Mr.  Adams,  in  the  reply 
of  the  House,  effectually  demolished  that  argument,  and 
properly  vindicated  the  people  and  the  Legislature.  This 
letter  has  the  same  tendency. 

"  I  do  not  now  attempt,"  he  says,  "  to  justify  this  proceeding " 
(alluding  to  the  riots  of  August  14th)  ;  "yet  I  will  venture  to  ex- 
press my  belief  that  if  the  whole  body  of  the  nation  had  thought 
their  essential  constitutional  rights  had  been  invaded  by  an  act 
of  Parliament,  which  really  is  the  apprehension  that  the  whole  body 
of  the  American  people  have  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  nation,  after 
having  taken  every  legal  means,  to  no  purpose,  to  prevent  its  opera- 
tion, would  have  justified  itself  in  the  same  conduct.  The  opposition 
to  the  act  daily  increases,  and  I  am  satisfied  nothing  can  ever  recon- 
cile the  people  to  it." 

By  the  same  conveyance,  Dennys  Deberdt,  the  newly  ap- 
pointed agent  in  London  for  special  purposes,  was  written 
to  on  the  21st  of  December  by  several  members  of  the 
House,  who  employed  as  usual  the  pen  of  Samuel  Adams. 
After  expressing  confidence  in  the  ability  and  inclination  of 
Deberdt  to  serve  the  Province,  and  opening  the  subject  of 
the  late  oppressive  acts,  Adams  continues :  — 

"  The  Colonies  may  in  consequence  of  this  be  put  upon  contriving 
some  other  method,  perhaps  to  their  own  greater  advantage,  and  not 
so  beneficial  to  the  nation.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  there 
will  be  an  end  to  remittances  that  are  now  made  to  Spain,  Portugal, 
and  other  parts  of  Europe,  through  which  the  greatest  part  of  the 
produce  of  America  and  the  profits  of  the  trade  flow  into  Great 
Britain,  and  set  up  her  manufacturers  of  all  kinds  of  work.  By 
means  of  the  trade  of  the  Colonists,  as  hitherto  carried  on,  millions 
of  them  have  been  enabled  yearly  to  consume  British  manufactures. 
An  attempt  to  raise  revenue  out  of  their  trade,  as  it  will  in  effect 
advance  the  price  of  your  manufactures,  will  reduce  the  people  to 
the  necessity  of  setting  up  manufactures  of  their  own.  Their  ne- 
cessity will  quicken  their  invention,  and  they  will  become  by  degrees 


104  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

less  useful,  and  in  time  entirely  useless  to  the  mother  country.  But 
we  humbly  apprehend  it  would  appear  too  partial  for  a  nation  to 
confine  her  views  to  her  own  interest  in  regulating  the  trade  of  her 
Colonies.  There  is  justice  due  them  as  subjects.  As  such,  they 
have  an  equal  right  with  the  inhabitant  of  Britain  of  making  use  of 
trade  and  all  other  honest  means  of  subsisting  and  enriching  them- 
selves. 

"  The  Colonists  have  as  great  a  regard  for  right,  liberty,  and  jus- 
tice as  any  people  under  heaven.  And  they  generally  have  knowl- 
edge enough  to  discover  when  their  rights  are  infringed.  If  this  be 
true,  you  will  own  they  merit  the  esteem  of  every  man  of  sense  in 
England,  especially  when  it  may  be  justly  added  that  they  are  and 
ever  have  been  as  loyal  subjects  as  any  the  King  has.  They  hold 
themselves  entitled  to  all  the  inherent  and  unalienable  rights  of 
nature  as  men,  and  to  all  the  essential  rights  of  Britons  as  subjects. 
The  common  law  of  England,  and  the  grand  leading  principles  of 
the  British  Constitution,  have  their  foundation  in  the  law  of  nature 
and  of  universal  reason.  Hence,  one  would  think  that  British 
rights  are  in  a  great  measure  unalienable, — the  rights  of  the  Colo- 
nists and  of  all  men  else.  The  American  subjects  are,  by  charters 
from  the  Crown  and  other  royal  institutions,  declared  entitled  to  all 
the  rights  and  privileges  of  natural-born  subjects  within  the  realm, 
and  with  good  reason,  for  as  emigrating  subjects  they  brought  the 
rights  and  laws  of  the  mother  state  with  them.  Had  they  been  con- 
quered, we  presume  that  by  the  British  Constitution,  after  taking  the 
oath  of  allegiance,  they  should  be  acknowledged  as  free  subjects,  — 
much  more  when  they  have  been  neither  rebels  nor  enemies,  but 
have  greatly  merited  of  their  mother  country  by  subduing  and  set- 
tling a  large  continent,  to  the  amazing  increase  of  national  power 
and  wealth. 

"  The  right  of  representation,  and  the  argument  against  this  tax 
founded  upon  it,  is  so  constitutional  that  the  writers  in  favor  of  it 
have  been  put  to  great  shifts  to  evade  it.  We  have  been  told  that 
we  are  virtually  represented,  but  we  must  desire  an  explanation  of 
this  vague  term,  before  we  can  give  it  a  serious  consideration.* 

*  Compare  the  letter  to  "  G.  W.,"  Nov.  13,  1765,  ante,  pp.  99-102. 


1765.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  105 

"  When  we  plead  the  right  of  representation,  we  only  mean  to 
have  our  not  being  represented  upon  our  own  free  election  consid- 
ered as  a  reason  why  we  should  not  be  taxed  by  the  Parliament ; 
and  we  apprehend  that  as  we  are  entitled  to  all  the  rights  of  British 
subjects,  it  is  a  reason  that  cannot  be  withstood  without  violence  to 
the  Constitution.  We  are  far  however  from  desiring  any  representa- 
tion there,  because  we  think  the  Colonies  cannot  be  fully  and  equally 
represented  ;  and  if  not  equally,  then  in  effect  not  at  all.  A  repre- 
sentative should  be,  and  continue  to  be,  well  acquainted  with  the  in- 
ternal circumstances  of  the  people  whom  he  represents.  It  is  often 
necessary  that  the  circumstances  of  individual  towns  should  be 
brought  into  comparison  with  those  of  the  whole ;  so  it  is  particu- 
larly when  taxes  are  in  consideration.  The  proportionate  part  of 
each  to  the  whole  can  be  found  only  by  an  exact  knowledge  of  the 
internal  circumstances  of  each.  Now  the  Colonies  are  at  so  great  a 
distance  from  the  place  where  the  Parliament  meets,  from  which 
they  are  separated  by  a  wide  ocean,  and  their  circumstances  are  so 
often  and  continually  varying,  as  is  the  case  in  countries  not  fully 
settled,  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for  men,  though  ever  so  well 
acquainted  with  them  at  the  beginning  of  a  Parliament  to  continue 
to  have  an  adequate  knowledge  of  them  during  the  existence  of  that 
Parliament. 

"  The  several  subordinate  powers  of  legislation  in  America  seem 
very  properly  to  have  been  constituted  upon  their  (the  Colonists)  be- 
ing considered  as  free  subjects  of  England,  and  the  impossibility  of 
their  being  represented  in  Parliament,  for  which  reason  these  powers 
ought  to  be  held  sacred.  The  American  powers  of  government  are 
rather  to  be  considered  as  matters  of  justice  than  favor,  —  without 
them,  they  cannot  enjoy  that  freedom  which,  having  never  forfeited, 
no  power  on  earth  has  any  right  to  deprive  them  of."  * 

*  This  letter  was  not  written  by  direction  of  the  Assembly,  but  is  signed 
by  several  gentlemen  as  individuals.  The  order  of  the  names  is,  Otis,  Crush- 
ing, Gray,  Adams,  and  Sheafe.  That  Otis  was  not  its  author  is  beyond  ques- 
tion from  the  unqualified  opposition  to  a  representation  in  Parliament  which  it 
expresses.  His  name  was  probably  placed  first  from  the  fact  that  at  the  close 
of  1765  he  was  the  most  conspicuous  member  of  the  Legislature.  That  it 
was  the  production  of  Samuel  Adams  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  the  original 
draft  has  been  found  in  his  handwriting,  while  a  comparison  of  whole  sen- 


CHAPTER    V. 

Change  in  the  British  Ministry.  — Effect  of  the  Non-importation  Agreements. 
—  Petitions  of  the  English  Tradesmen  and  Manufacturers  for  the  Repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act. — Exciting  Debates  in  Parliament.  —  Pitt  and  Burke. — 
Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Rejoicings  in  London.  —  QfiBfl&fiMI  nf  ^filirq 
in  Massarh"gQf+° — The  Legislature  meet  in  January,  1766.  —  Bold  Lan- 
guage of  the  House.  —  Controversy  with  the  Governor  on  the  Opening  of 
the  Courts.  —  Arrival  in  Boston  of  the  News  from  London.  —  Rejoicings 
at  the  Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Adams  dissatisfied  with  the  Terms.  — 
The  Declaratory  Act. — Adams  orings  John  Hancock  forward  into  Public 
Life.  —  Election  Controversy  conducted  by  Adams  in  the  Assembly.  —  Dis- 
putes as  to  compensating  the  Sufferers  by  the  late  Riots. 

In  September,  while  the  country  was  yet  agitated  with  the 
measures  of  the  administration,  the  news  had  arrived  in 
Boston  of  a  change  in  the  Ministry ;  Grenville  having  been 
succeeded  by  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  a  young  states- 
man of  no  great  natural  abilities,  but  liberal  and  honorable 
in  his  views.  The  elevation  to  power  of  the  "  Rockingham 
Whigs  "  gave  a  gleam  of  hope  to  the  oppressed  Americans. 
Although  a  portion  of  the  new  administration  had  been 
among  the  original  supporters  of  the  Stamp  Act,  Conway,  a 
warm  friend  of  the  Colonies,  was  one  of  the  Cabinet ;  and 
Edmund  Burke,  the  most  accomplished  intellect  in  the  na- 
tion, and  a  giant  supporter  of  the  American  cause,  became 
private  secretary  to  the  Premier.  It  was  not  at  first  contem- 
plated to  alter  or  repeal  the  Stamp  Act.  The  King  was 
determined  on  the  prosecution  of  his  policy  of  taxation,  and 

tences,  as  well  as  the  general  style  of  the  paper,  with  his  private  letters  written 
a  short  time  before,  will  show  the  same  hand  in  each.  Adams  undoubtedly 
wrote  the  letter,  and,  to  give  it  additional  weight,  obtained  the  signatures  of 
the  others.  It  is  printed,  with  slight  variations,  in  the  "  Seventy-six  Society's  " 
Papers  relating  to  Public  Events  in  Massachusetts  preceding  the  Revolution. 
Philadelphia,  1856. 


Jan.,  1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  10T 

a  change  of  measures  seemed  unlikely.  The  subject  indeed 
was  not  then  considered  of  pressing  importance ;  and  in  the 
House  of  Peers,  when  the  Stamp  Act  became  a  law,  it  was 
not  even  adverted  to  by  a  single  lord.  A  few  years  served 
to  reveal  the  whirlwind  they  had  sown.  Now,  under  the 
Rockingham  Ministry,  though  every  ship  from  America 
brought  tidings  of  popular  tumults,  British  statesmen  had 
not  yet  aroused  to  the  importance  of  the  subject.  Parlia- 
ment met  on  the  17th  of  December,  but  immediately  ad- 
journed until  after  the  Christmas  holidays.  Applications 
not  only  from  the  Colonial  agents,  but  from  the  trades'  inter- 
ests, began  to  pour  in  for  a  repeal  of  the  act.  These,  backed 
by  the  efforts  of  innumerable  influential  persons  in  England, 
grew  so  powerful,  that  the  prospect  became  daily  more  en- 
couraging. Solemn  resolutions  had  been  adopted  among 
the  Colonists  to  import  no  more  British  manufactured  goods 
till  the  act  was  repealed;  and  government  was  in  conse- 
quence besieged  with  petitions  from  manufacturers.  Gren- 
ville,  now  out  of  power,  declared  that "  had  he  continued 
in  office,  he  would  have  forfeited  a  thousand  lives,  if  the  act 
had  been  found  impracticable."  A  special  hindrance  to  the 
repeal  was  the  denial  by  the  Colonial  Legislatures  of  a  right 
to  impose  taxes.  It  would  therefore  be  conceding  too  much ; 
it  would  be  admitting,  in  fact,  that  the  Parliament  had  no 
right  to  legislate  for  the  Colonies ;  it  would  be  a  "  surrender 
of  sovereignty.' '  But  the  sympathy  of  the  intelligent  classes 
in  England  was  largely  with  the  Americans,  whose  struggle 
for  liberty  could  not  be  regarded  merely  with  mercenary 
views. 

The  debate  in  Parliament  early  in  the  new  year  was  one 
of  the  most  memorable  in  the  annals  of  England.  Pitt  and 
Burke,  the  Titans  of  British  eloquence,  the  one  fast  disap- 
pearing from  the  stage,  and  the  other  just  entering  upon  his 
splendid  career,  were  present  and  took  part.  Pitt  entered 
during  the  debate,  having  just  arrived  in  town.  The  Ameri- 
cans in  the  gallery  viewed  him  as  their  "  guardian  angel 


108  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

and  saviour,"  and  waited  for  his  words  with  eager  impatience. 
The  man  who  had  wielded  with  such  mighty  effect  the  power 
of  England  in  the  late  war,  arose.  He  regretted,  he  said, 
that  he  had  not  been  able  to  attend  in  his  place,  and  oppose 
the  law  on  its  passage. 

"  It  is  now  an  act  that  has  passed.  I  would  speak  with  decency 
of  every  act  of  this  House ;  but  I  must  beg  the  indulgence  of  this 
House  to  speak  of  it  with  freedom.  Assuredly  a  more  important 
subject  never  engaged  your  attention,  that  subject  only  excepted, 
when,  nearly  a  century  ago,  it  was  the  question  whether  you  your- 
selves were  bond  or  free. 

"  Taxation  is  no  part  of  the  governing  or  legislative  power.  The 
taxes  are  a  voluntary  gift  and  grant  of  the  commons  alone ;  when, 
therefore,  in  this  House,  we  give  and  grant,  we  give  and  grant  what 
is  our  own.  But  in  an  American  tax,  what  can  we  do  ?  We,  your 
Majesty's  commons  of  Great  Britain,  give  and  grant  to  your  Majesty 
—  what  ?  Our  own  property  ?  No.  We  give  and  grant  to  your 
Majesty  the  property  of  your  commons  in  America.  It  is  an  ab- 
surdity in  terms." 

Conway  concurred  in  the  views  of  the  great  statesman. 
Then  Grenville,  true  to  his  indomitable  spirit,  censured  the 
Ministry  for  not  giving  earlier  notices  of  the  disturbances  in 
America,  which  he  said  had  grown  to  tumults  and  riots,  and 
bordered  now  upon  rebellion.  "  Protection  and  obedience 
are  reciprocal.  Great  Britain  protects  America.  America 
is  bound  to  yield  obedience.  If  not,  tell  me  when  these 
Americans  were  emancipated." 

"  I  rejoice,"  replied  Pitt,  "  that  America  has  resisted.  Three 
millions  of  people  so  dead  to  all  the  feelings  of  liberty  as  volunta- 
rily to  submit  to  be  slaves,  would  have  been  fit  instruments  to  make 
slaves  of  the  rest. 

"The  gentleman  asks,  When  were  the  Colonies  emancipated? 
But  I  desire  to  know  when  they  were  made  slaves  ?  A  great  deal 
has  been  said  without  doors,  and  more  than  what  is  discreet,  of  the 
power,  of  the  strength  of  America.     In  a  good  cause,  on  a  sound 


1766.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  109 

bottom,  the  force  of  this  country  can  crush  America  to  atoms.  But 
on  the  ground  of  this  tax,  when  it  is  wished  to  prosecute  an  evident 
injustice,  I  am  one  who  will  lift  my  hands  and  my  voice  against  it. 
In  such  a  cause,  your  success  would  be  deplorable  and  victory  haz- 
ardous. America,  if  she  fell,  would  fall  like  the  strong  man.  She 
would  embrace  the  pillars  of  the  state  and  pull  down  the  Constitution 
along  with  her." 

He  concluded  with  giving  his  advice  that  the  Stamp  Act 
should  be  repealed  absolutely,  totally,  and  immediately ; 
that  this  reason  for  its  repeal  be  assigned,  that  it  was  founded 
on  an  erroneous  principle. 

"  At  the  same  time,"  said  he,  "  let  the  sovereign  authority  of  this 
country  over  the  Colonies  be  asserted  in  as  strong  terms  as  can  be 
devised,  and  be  made  to  extend  to  every  point  of  legislation  what- 
soever ;  that  we  may  bind  their  trade,  confine  their  manufactures, 
and  exercise  every  power,  except  that  of  taking  their  money  out  of 
their  pockets  without  their  consent." 

Petitions  from  London,  Birmingham,  Coventry,  Bristol, 
Liverpool,  Manchester,  and  other  towns,  were  presented,  and 
the  recent  correspondence  with  America  was  laid  on  the 
table.  Dr.  Franklin  appeared  soon  after  before  the  House 
in  committee  of  the  whole,  and  was  examined  touching  the 
state  of  America,  and  the  probable  effect  upon  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  imposition  of  stamp  duties.  His  novel  and 
pertinent  replies,  and  their  evident  truthfulness,  convinced 
the  House,  that  "  the  American  people  would  never  submit 
to  the  act,  unless  compelled  by  force  of  arms."  The  ques- 
tion remained  in  suspense  until  the  22d  of  February,  when 
after  a  debate,  in  which  Pitt,  Conway,  Burke,  and  Grenville 
took  part,  in  the  presence  of  five  hundred  members,  at  half- 
past  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  Conway's  motion  to  bring 
in  a  bill  to  repeal  the  Stamp  Act  prevailed.  On  the  18th  of 
March,  the  King  sanctioned  the  bill,  and  all  London  was  in 
a  blaze  of  joy.  The  next  night  houses  were  illuminated,  the 
ships  displayed  their  colors,  and  bells  merrily  pealed  forth  in 
response  to  the  general  jubilee. 


<tf£ 


/;! 


P^-^t^ 


^i^ 


110  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

Meantime,  the  hand  of  oppression  lay  heavily  upon  Massa- 
chusetts. The  principal  merchants  of  Boston  and  other 
towns,  to  the  number  of  two  hundred,  agreed  to  import  no 
more  goods  from  England,  and  countermanded  their  orders 
for  shipments.  No  compulsion  was  used  at  this  time  to 
enforce  the  observance  of  these  agreements.  The  courts 
were  still  closed  ;  no  business  was  done  in  the  custom- 
house ;  no  wills  were  proved,  no  deeds  nor  bonds  executed. 
The  Assembly  had  been  prorogued,  and  anxiety  and  distress 
prevailed.  All  that  prudence  and  due  moderation  could 
suggest  had  been  done  by  the  populace  to  manifest  their 
indignation,  and  it  only  remained  to  see  whether  the  strenu- 
ous efforts  of  their  friends  in  England  would  prevail  in  re- 
pealing the  act. 

The  Assembly  had  been  prorogued  from  November  to 
January  15th.  In  his  opening  speech,  the  Governor  recom- 
mended the  ordinary  business,  and  only  distantly  alluded  to 
the  point  in  controversy.  During  this  session,  Mr.  Adams's 
name  appears  on  numerous  committees,  to  draft  answers 
and  prepare  general  reports.  Besides  being  a  member  of 
that  appointed  to  reply  to  the  opening  address,  he  was  on  the 
committee  "to  take  into  consideration  his  Excellency's 
speech  of  the  8th  of  November  at  the  prorogation  of  the 
General  Court,  and  to  prepare  the  draft  of  an  answer  there- 
to." The  Assembly,  owing  to  the  Governor's  sudden  pro- 
rogation, had  been  allowed  no  time  to  reply,  during  the 
previous  session.  Hutchinson  says  of  the  House,  that 
"  their  zeal  in  the  cause  had  rather  increased  than  abated 
during  the  recess."  Adopting  the  words  of  Adams's  Massa- 
chusetts Resolves,  they  admit  only  "  a  due  veneration  to  the 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain  "  ;  a  term  in  which  Hutchinson 
could  see  "  no  acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment in  any  case  whatever."  The  Governor  had  expressed 
the  hope  "  that  an  estimate  of  this  people  would  not  be 
formed  from  a  review  of  the  present  times  "  ;  and  the  House 
replied,  in  the  language  of  Samuel  Adams :  — 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  Ill 

"  Of  the  present  times,  may  it  please  your  Excellency,  impartial 
history  will  record  that  the  people  of  this  continent,  after  giving  the 
strongest  testimonies  of  their  loyalty  to  his  Majesty,  particularly  by 
making  their  utmost  exertions  in  defending  his  territories  and  en- 
larging his  dominion  in  this  part  of  the  world,  upon  a  motion  made 
in  this  House,  gave  an  equal  testimony  of  a  love  of  liberty  and 
regard  to  those  principles  which  are  a  basis  of  his  Majesty's  govern- 
ment, by  a  glorious  stand  even  against  an  act  of  Parliament,  because 
they  plainly  saw  that  their  essential,  unalienable  right  of  represen- 
tation and  of  trials  by  juries,  the  very  foundation  of  the  British 
Constitution,  was  infringed  and  even  annihilated  by  it ;  but  that 
they  had  knowledge  and  virtue  enough  to  regulate  their  opposition 
to  it  by  the  law,  and  steadily  to  persevere  in  such  steps  as  the  Con- 
stitution has  prescribed  to  obtain  its  repeal.* 

"Your  Excellency  says  that  these  times  have  been  made  more  diffi- 
cult than  they  need  have  been,  which  is  also  the  opinion  of  this  House. 
Those  who  have  made  them  so  have  reason  to  regret  the  injury 
they  have  done  to  a  sincere  and  honest  people.  We  are  glad,  how- 
ever, to  find  that  the  difficulty  of  the  times  is  in  a  great  measure 
removed,  and  we  trust  that  the  Province  will  be  soon  restored  to  its 
former  tranquillity,  —  your  Excellency  is  pleased  to  add  "reputa- 
tion." The  custom-houses  are  now  open,  and  the  people  are  per- 
mitted to  do  their  own  business.  The  courts  of  justice  must  be  open, 
open  immediately,  and  the  law,  the  great  rule  of  right  in  every 
county  in  the  Province,  executed."  f 

Among  the  other  committees  upon  which  the  name  of 
Samuel  Adams  appears  during  the  session  are  the  following : 
"  To  consider  the  grievances  the  people  of  this  Province 
labor  under  " ;  "To  prepare  the  draft  of  an  impost  bill " ; 
"  To  present  to  the  Governor  the  answer  of  the  House  to  his 
speech  of  November  8th " ;  "To  propose  a  bill  to  prevent 
frauds  in  flax  "  ;  "  To  consider  the  light-house  keeper's  re- 
port " ;  "  To  view  the  papers  and  wills  above  stairs,  and 
report "  ;  "  To  take  under  consideration  the  extract  from  the 
Eight  Honorable  Mr.  Conway  (which  his  Excellency  was 
pleased  to  communicate  to  the  House),  and  report.' '  J 

*  Compare  the  Massachusetts  Resolves,  ante,  pp.  75  -  77. 

t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  61.  J  Journal  of  the  House  for  1766. 


112  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

Early  in  the  session  letters  were  received  from  Deberdt 
and  Jackson  in  answer  to  those  written  at  the  close  of  the 
previous  year,  extracts  from  which  have  already  been  given. 
Deberdt  signified  his  acceptance  of  the  agency  of  the  House 
to  solicit  the  petitions  of  the  New  York  Congress,  and  gave 
reason  to  anticipate  their  favorable  reception.  Mr.  Adams 
replied  for  the  House :  — 

"  Your  acceptance  of  the  trust  imposed  upon  you  by  the  House, 
and  your  early  and  zealous  application  to  the  very  important  business 
of  it,  affords  them  great  satisfaction.  Your  not  having  copies  of  the 
several  petitions  authenticated  by  the  speakers  was  an  oversight  of 
the  House.  It  is  hoped,  however,  that  their  interest  will  not  be 
prejudiced  by  this  omission,  as  Mr.  Jackson,  to  whom  they  were 
sent,  signed  by  the  members  of  the  Congress,  was  so  careful  as  to 
deliver  them  to  you,  and  your  appointment  as  a  special  agent  for 
these  very  petitions  fully  shows  that  the  House  had  adopted  them. 

"  The  favorable  reception  which  the  petitions  met  with  from  the 
Secretary  of  State  and  Lord  Rockingham,  the  real  affection  which 
Lord  Dartmouth  has  been  pleased  to  express  for  America,  and 
indeed  the  whole  Ministry,  which  your  letter  assures  us  of,  will 
justify  us  in  entertaining  the  strongest  hopes  of  the  success  of  our 
applications ;  and  the  access  which  you  are  honored  with  to  persons 
of  great  rank  and  importance  confirm  the  House  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  choice  they  made  of  you  to  act  for  them  in  so  interesting  an 
affair. 

"  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  the  House  to  find  by  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Jackson  that  your  appointment  is  so  agreeable  to  him.  He  assures 
the  House  that  he  will  join  his  utmost  endeavors  with  you  to  favor 
the  interest  of  the  Province. 

"  The  House  is  very  sensible  of  the  kindness  of  the  merchants  of 
London  in  warmly  espousing  their  cause,  and  promise  themselves 
great  success  from  the  aid  which  the  application  and  interest  of  so 
respectable  a  body  of  men  must  afford  to  our  petitions.  The  many 
great  and  powerful  friends  to  America  on  your  side  the  water, 
which  the  Colonies  must  be  convinced  of,  will  serve  to  prevent  that 
indifference  towards  the  mother  country  which  the  late  regulations 
might  have  produced,  and  will  tend  to  the  mutual  advantage  of  both 
countries ;  for,  as  you  rightly  observe,  the  interest  of  both  is  insep- 


1766.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  113 

arable,  and  nothing  is  more  to  be  wished  than  that  this  affection 
may  be  mutual. 

"  The  House  trust  that  Divine  Providence  will  interpose  for  them, 
that  your  agency,  in  which  this  Province  is  most  essentially  con- 
cerned, will  be  attended  with  success." 

His  original  draft  of  this  letter,  Mr.  Adams  marked  "  re- 
corded " ;  and  by  the  journal  of  the  day  before  it  was 
reported  it  appears  that  Captain  Sheafe  was  directed  to' pur- 
chase two  books  in  which  to  record  the  correspondence  of 
the  House.     These  books,  however,  have  disappeared. 

A  full  list  of  Mr.  Adams's  committee  services  for  this 
session  cannot  be  made  out,  as  the  journals  are  incomplete. 
The  results  of  those  already  named,  however,  are  found  on 
many  pages.  Towards  the  close  of  the  previous  session  in 
October,  he  had  been  appointed  one  of  a  joint  committee 
with  the  Council,  "to  consider  and  report  some  proper 
methods  to  prevent  difficulties,  which  may  arise  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  courts  of  justice,  and  in  any  other  matters  after 
the  1st  of  November  next."  The  report  soon  appeared, 
and  recommended  that  all  the  judges  and  court  officers 
"  be  ordered  and  directed  to  proceed  in  the  same  manner  in 
the  execution  of  their  respective  offices  as  if  the  Stamp  Act 
had  never  passed ;  and  all  papers  whatever  which  are  sub- 
ject to  be  stamped  by  said  act  shall,  without  the  stamp,  be 
deemed  valid  during  this  emergency  "  The  Council  refused 
to  concur,  and  the  House  recommitted  the  report,  but  do 
not  appear  to  have  proceeded  further  in  the  matter,  perhaps 
thinking  that  the  ground  was  covered  by  the  Massachusetts 
Resolves,  which  were  reported  at  that  time. 

But  on  the  opening  of  the  session  in  January,  1766,  the 
subject  was  immediately  revived,  and  the  committee  on  griev- 
ances now  reported  against  several  arbitrary  acts  of  the  Gov- 
ernor ;  and  "  that  the  shutting  up  the  courts  of  justice,  par- 
ticularly the  Superior  Court,  which  is  not  yet  open,  nor  like 
to  be,  as  we  can  learn,  has  a  manifest  tendency  to  dissolve  the 
bonds  of  all  civil  society,  is  unjustifiable  on  the  principles  of 

VOL.   I.  8 


114  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan.— May, 

law  and  reason,  and  dangerous  to  his  Majesty's  crown  and 
dignity,  and  in  disherison  thereof,  and  an  intolerable  griev- 
ance on  the  subject,  to  be  forthwith  redressed. "  *  They 
asked  leave  to  sit  again,  and  after  three  days,  during  which 
there  must  have  been  some  close  discussion  among  the 
committee-men  and  others,  they  again  reported  to  the  same 
effect,  but  with  the  important  recommendation  that  "  the 
judges,  and  justices,  and  all  other  public  officers,  ought 
to  proceed  in  the  discharge  of  their  several  functions  as 
usual."  f  The  first  report  was  evidently  not  strong  enough 
to  suit  somebody  on  the  committee. 

This  went  for  concurrence  to  the  Council,  who  refused 
their  assent,  but  resolved  to  recommend  the  judges  to  meet 
and  determine  whether  they  would  proceed  upon  the  trial 
of  civil  actions  or  not.  Later  in  the  session  the  House  again 
passed  their  resolution,  which  the  Council  once  more  re- 
jected, on  the  ground  that  the  judges  had  intimated  that  the 
Superior  Court  would  open  and  proceed  to  business  as  usual 
at  the  ensuing  term.  These  efforts  for  the  renewal  of  the 
legal  business  of  the  Province  were  in  keeping  with  those 
of  Samuel  Adams  in  the  previous  month,  when,  as  chair- 
man of  the  town  meeting,  he  had  applied  for  the  opening 
of  the  courts,  and  that  the  town  might  be  heard  by  their 
counsel. 

The  news,  that  in  the  House  of  Commons  Pitt  had  de- 
clared himself  favorable  to  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and 
his  vindication  of  the  people  of  America,  prepared  the  pub- 
lic mind  for  a  happy  result.  The  welcome  intelligence 
reached  Boston  on  the  16th  of  May  by  the  brigantine  "  Harri- 
son,' '  which  "  hove  to,  in  the  inner  harbor."  The  jubilee 
in  consequence  was  as  intense  as  the  opposition  to  the  act 
had  been.  Bells  were  rung,  the  ships  in  the  harbor  displayed 
their  colors,  guns  were  fired,  and,  at  dark,  bonfires  were 
kindled.    On  the  19th  the  event  was  celebrated  with  notable 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  Jan.  20,  1766. 
t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  65. 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  115 

enthusiasm.  At  one  in  the  morning,  as  the  sound  of  the 
clock  striking  ceased,  the  bell  in  the  Rev.  Dr.  Byles's 
church,  being  nearest  to  Liberty-Tree,  began  to  ring ;  this 
was  answered  by  the  bells  of  Christ  Church  at  North  End, 
and  soon  every  bell  in  town  gave  forth  its  joyful  clangor. 
Guns  were  fired,  and  drums  beat,  and  music  was  played  in 
the  street  before  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  throughout 
the  day,  and  peals  of  artillery  boomed  from  Castle  William, 
the  North  and  South  Battery,  the  artillery  train  in  the  city, 
and  from  the  ships  in  the  harbor.  Steeples  and  house- 
tops were  hung  with  flags,  and  the  whole  town  went  wild 
with  excitement.  Fireworks,  exceeding  anything  before 
known  in  New  England,  were  exhibited  on  the  Common, 
and  the  houses  were  universally  illuminated ;  that  of  John 
Hancock  shone  conspicuously.  Fireworks  were  let  off  from 
a  stage  erected  in  front  of  the  dwelling  at  his  own  expense, 
which  answered  those  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty  on  the  Common. 
"  The  genteel  part  of  the  town  "  were  entertained  at  his 
house,  and  the  wealthy,  generous-hearted  proprietor  treated 
the  populace  with  a  pipe  of  Madeira  wine.*  Throughout 
the  exhibition,  Mr.  Otis  and  others  living  near  the  Common 
kept  open  house.  The  celebration  appears  to  have  surpassed 
all  others  of  the  kind  ever  seen  in  Boston.  The  people 
seemed,  as  Mr.  Adams  afterwards  said,  "  mad  with  loyalty," 
but  it  would  appear  from  his  writings  on  the  subject  that  he 
was  not  carried  away  by  the  popular  rejoicing.  He  looked 
beyond  the  immediate  results,  and  foresaw  the  consequences 
of  the  mischievous  reservation  which  accompanied  the  re- 
peal. He  could  not  join  in  any  expression  conveying  the  idea 
that  this  was  &  favor  to  his  countrymen,  who  had  resolutely 
claimed  a  total  exemption  from  taxation,  and  were  now  re- 
joicing over  a  semblance  of  relief,  while  the  evil  was  really 
unchanged.  The  effect  of  the  celebration,  however,  like  that 
in  London,  was  to  display  to  the  powers  in  England  the 

*  Drake's  History  of  Boston,  pp.  721,  722 ;   and  Boston  papers  of  May, 
1766. 


116  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

determined  spirit  of  American  liberty.  In  one  of  his  con- 
troversies with  the  crown  writers  on  the  public  grievances, 
Mr.  Adams  says :  — 

"  As  to  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  though  the  people  of  this 
Province  and  America  universally  regarded  this  act  as  an  infraction 
of  their  constitutional  rights,  and  consequently  humbly  claimed  the 
repeal  as  a  point  of  equity,  they  yet  received  it  with  as  much  grati- 
tude as  though  it  had  been  a  free  gift.  They  blessed  their  sovereign ; 
they  revered  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  British  Parliament ; 
they  felt  themselves  happy  till  new  acts,  equally  unconstitutional, 
were  made,  and  severities  imposed  upon  trade  unknown  even  at  the 
time  of  the  Stamp  Act.  But  it  seems  we  are  unpardonable  for  not 
being  thankful  for  the  removal  of  one  burden,  after  another  is  laid 
upon  us,  by  the  same  hands,  equally  hard  to  bear !  How  contempti- 
ble is  such  reasoning !  What  an  affront  to  common  sense !  I  never 
heard  of  such  discourse  in  Parliament  till  I  saw  our  court  paper. 
And  can  these  persons  be  friends  to  the  leading  men  in  government, 
who  represent  them  as  reasoning  in  such  a  manner  ?  "  * 

With  the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  act,  was  coupled  the 
Declaratory  Act,  asserting  the  authority  of  Parliament  "  to 
bind  the  Colonies  and  people  of  America  in  all  cases  what 
soever."  The  mere  fact  of  relief  from  the  Stamp  Act,  as  we 
have  seen,  diffused  heartfelt  joy ;  but  as  the  enthusiasm  wore 
away,  the  act  for  "  securing  the  dependency  of  the  Colonies," 
began  to  be  viewed  with  distrust  and  anxiety  by  the  more 
intelligent.  They  had  contended,  not  against  the  pecuniary 
loss  involved  in  an  enforcement  of  the  act,  but  for  the  asser- 
tion of  a  great  principle,  the  right  of  exemption  from  taxa- 
tion unless  they  were  represented,  and  that  representation 
must  ever  be  impractible.  If  the  repeal  was  attended  by  an 
avowal  of  the  right  to  bind  the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatso- 
ever, it  was  but  a  nominal  relief;  and  a  precedent  was  es- 
tablished which  could  operate  on  future  occasions  to  the 
prejudice  of  their  liberties.     Samuel  Adams  saw  that  the 

*  Shippen,  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  January  30,  1769.    See  also  the  close 
of  his  letter  from  the  House  to  Dr.  Franklin,  June,  1771,  quoted  in  Chap.  XIX 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  11T 

danger  was  equally  great,  did  the  Province  still  complain 
after  the  repeal,  or  remain  silent.  The  first  course  would 
be  construed  against  them  as  turbulent,  unruly  subjects, 
seeking  after  independence  ;  the  last  might  imply  acquies- 
cence in  the  declaration,  and  lead  to  further  encroach- 
ments. 

His  views  on  this  subject  are  found  more  at  length  a  few 
years  after  the  time  of  the  Declaratory  Act,  in  one  of  his 
political  essays:  — 

"  Let  us  take  a  short  retrospect  of  American  affairs.  The  oppo- 
sition which  the  Colonies  made  to  the  detestable  Stamp  Act  in  the 
year  1765  finally  operated  its  repeal.  I  am  induced  to  call  it  a 
detestable  act,  not  from  a  warmth  of  resentment  against  a  measure 
which,  had  it  taken  effect,  would  have  involved  this  whole  continent 
in  perfect  absolute  slavery,  but  from  the  cool  dictates  of  reason. 
For  though  it  was  soon  repealed,  it  yet  created  such  a  jealousy  be- 
tween the  mother  country  and  the  Colonies  as  it  is  to  be  feared 
will  never  wholly  subside,  and,  for  aught  the  promoters  of  it  can 
tell,  will  finally  end  in  the  ruin  of  the  most  glorious  empire  the  sun 
ever  shone  upon,  or  at  least  may  accelerate  consequences,  arising 
from  American  independence,  which,  whenever  they  happen,  will  be 
fatal  to  Britain  herself.  As  a  condition  of  the  repeal,  the  friends 
of  the  American  cause,  which  was  the  cause  of  liberty,  in  the  British 
House  of  Commons,  were  obliged  to  yield  to  a  proposal  that  an  act 
should  be  passed  expressly  declaring  the  right  in  the  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons  of  Great  Britain  to  make  laws  which  shall  be  binding 
on  the  Colonies  in  all  cases  whatever.  The  Americans,  who  not 
long  before  were  viewed  by  the  people  of  Britain  in  no  better  a 
character  than  the  tawny,  aboriginal  natives,  were  not  so  void  of 
understanding  as  to  overlook  the  latent  meaning  of  this  act.  They 
clearly  understood  the  true  intention  of  the  words,  in  all  cases  what- 
ever, and  that  a  right  of  making  revenue  laws  binding  on  the  Colonies 
was  necessarily  included.  Thus  Great  Britain,  instead  of  burying 
in  eternal  oblivion  a  claim  so  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  reason  and 
equity,  and  therefore  so  obnoxious  to  all  the  Colonies,  was  induced 
at  that  critical  season,  and  as  I  conceive  contrary  to  all  the  rules  of 
sound  policy,  as  far  as  she  could,  to  establish  it,  and  while  she  was, 
through  necessity,  about  to  repeal  one  law  for  taxing  the  Colonies 


118  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

without  their  consent,  she  at  the  same  time  held  up  to  them  a  claim, 
and  in  effect  told  them  that  she  was  resolved  to  make  another,  or  a 
thousand  more,  whenever  she  should  be  pleased  to  exercise  the  right 
she  had  assumed.  Such  were  the  counsels  which  ruled  in  Britain 
then,  and  we  all  know  what  they  have  been  since. 

"  The  Americans,  for  the  sake  of  restoring  harmony,  chose  to  treat 
this  act  with  silence,  at  least  till  necessity  should  oblige  them  to  re- 
monstrate the  ill  effects  of  it.  The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  was 
received  with  universal  joy;  and  perhaps  future  historians  may 
say  of  the  Colonists,  as  has  been  said  of  the  people  of  Britain,  upon 
another  occasion,  in  a  former  period,  that  they  were  'mad  with  loy- 
alty.' Addresses  were  offered  to  our  most  gracious  sovereign  on 
the  occasion,  and  letters  of  thanks  were  sent  to  the  patriots,  who 
had  signalized  themselves  as  instruments  in  bringing  on  this  happy 
event.  The  commerce  with  Great  Britain,  which  had  been  stopped, 
was  again  revived  upon  the  additional  motive  of  gratitude  ;  and  such 
steps  were  taken  as  might  probably  lead  the  mother  country,  in  the 
height  of  her  glory,  to  imagine  that  the  Americans  looked  upon  the 
repeal  as  a  singular  and  unmerited  favor.  It  must  be  owned  they 
seemed  too  unmindful  of  the  right  they  had  on  their  part  claimed, 
of  a  total  exemption  from  taxes  not  raised  with  their  own  free  con- 
sent ;  and  that  the  repeal  was  nothing  more,  upon  their  own  princi- 
ples, than  the  removal  of  a  burden  which  they  were  under  no  man- 
ner of  obligation  to  bear.  I  mention  these  things  to  show  that  the 
Colonies  were  at  that  time  heartily  disposed  to  a  reconciliation  with 
the  mother  country,  and  that  she  has  not  the  least  reason  to  complain 
of  them  that  differences  still  unhappily  subsist  between  them ;  and, 
if  Britain  herself  would  now  and  then  recollect,  she  might,  perhaps, 
correct  some  past  errors  and  follies,  which  might  tend  to  restore  that 
mutual  affection  which  all  good  men  wish  for,  and  she  herself,  how- 
ever she  may  now  think  of  the  matter,  may  one  day  want.  Power 
is  intoxicating ;  and  those  who  are  possessed  of  it  too  often  grow 
vain  and  insolent.  We  have  daily  instances  of  this  in  particular 
persons ;  and  a  haughty  nation,  inebriated  with  power,  like  a  drunken 
man  upon  a  precipice,  may  fall  into  inevitable  ruin,  when  the  friend- 
ly hand  of  a  child,  if  present,  might  have  led  him  from  danger."  * 

During  the  spring  of  this  year,  there  had  been  a  number 

*  "Alfred/' in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  2,  1769. 


1766.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  119 

of  town  meetings  relative  to  the  pnblic  liberties.  At  one  of 
these  an  address  was  read  from  the  people  of  Plymouth  to 
Boston,  expressing  a  generous  sympathy  with  the  inhabi- 
tants and  their  thanks  for  the  loyal  and  legal  endeavors  of 
the  Bostonians  to  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty,  "  and  trans- 
mit them  entire  and  perfect  to  the  latest  posterity. "  Mr. 
Adams  was  chairman  of  the  committee  to  draft  an  answer, 
which  was  reported  on  the  24th  of  March.  It  eloquently 
rehearses  the  settlement  of  the  country  by  their  forefathers, 
recounts  the  cost,  pains,  and  peril  of  the  adventure,  and  the 
increase  of  dominion,  strength,  and  riches,  which  had  thus 
accrued  to  Great  Britain.  They  express  their  "  honest  in- 
dignation to  think  there  should  have  been  any  among  her 
sons  so  ungrateful,  as  well  as  unjust  and  cruel,  as  to  seek 
their  ruin.', 

"  Instances  of  this  too  frequently  occur  in  the  past  history  of  our 
country.  The  names  of  Randolph,  of  Andros,  and  others,  are 
handed  down  to  us  with  infamy ;  and  the  times  in  which  we  live  — 
even  these  very  times  —  may  furnish  some  future  historian  with  a 
catalogue  of  those  who  look  upon  our  rising  greatness  with  an  envi- 
ous eye,  and,  while  we  and  our  sister  Colonies  have  been  exerting 
our  growing  strength  in  the  most  substantial  services  to  the  mother 
country,  by  art  and  intrigue  have  wickedly  attempted  to  deceive  her 
into  measures  to  enslave  us."  * 

At  the  annual  election  on  the  6th  of  May,  Samuel  Adams, 
Thomas  Cushing,  James  Otis,  and  John  Hancock  were 
chosen  Representatives  for  the  town.  This  was  the  opening 
of  the  political  career  of  the  afterwards  famous  John  Han- 
cock. He  had  failed  of  an  election  the  previous  year,  hav- 
ing received  but  forty  votes.  In  the  mean  time  his  wealth 
and  ambition  had  attracted  the  notice  of  Adams,  who  saw 
that  the  enlisting  of  so  potent  an  auxiliary  must  result  in 
signal  benefit  to  the  cause.  He  therefore  nominated  him  in 
opposition  to  John  Rowe,  and  secured  his  election.  Han- 
cock was  at  this  time  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  fifteen  years 

*  Boston  Town  Records. 


120  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Mar, 

the  junior  of  Samuel  Adams,  with  whom  his  name  is  in- 
dissolubly  connected  by  Gage's  proscription.  He  was  bred 
a  merchant  in  the  counting-room  of  his  uncle,  Thomas 
Hancock,  where  he  acquired  a  knowledge  of  mercantile 
life.  At  the  death  of  his  uncle,  who  made  him  his  heir, 
Mr.  Hancock  became  possessed  of  a  handsome  fortune  in 
shipping  and  real  estate,  making  him  uncommonly  rich  for 
that  period.  His  profuse  liberality,  fine  person,  and  affable 
manners  gave  him  great  popularity.  As  the  struggle  with 
the  mother  country  advanced,  Hancock  became  conspicuous 
among  his  countrymen,  and  eventually  reached  positions  of 
trust  and  honor,  whereby  his  name  will  descend  to  posterity 
as  one  of  the  illustrious  galaxy  of  Revolutionary  patriots. 

The  Board  of  Councillors,  as  well  as  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  under  the  royal  charter,  were  elected  by  a  convention 
of  the  Legislature,  and  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Gov- 
ernor. On  the  meeting  of  the  General  Court,  May  28th, 
the  House  elected  James  Otis  Speaker,  and  Samuel  Adams 
Clerk ;  this  officer  always  being  chosen  from  among  their 
own  body.  The  Clerk  took  part  in  the  debates  of  the  House, 
had  a  vote  like  the  Speaker,  and  was  in  no  way  distinguished 
from  the  other  members,  except  in  the  matter  of  salary  and 
his  official  duties.  The  sums  voted  at  different  times  in  the 
next  eight  years,  as  shown  by  the  records,  prove  that  the  sal- 
ary of  Mr.  Adams  was  not  above  one  hundred  pounds  a  year. 

The  Governor,  who  was  elated  at  having  been  praised  in 
the  House  of  Lords  for  his  opinions,  and  had  given  out  that 
he  "  meant  to  play  out  his  part  as  Governor,"  refused  Mr. 
Otis  as  Speaker,  though  no  one  doubted  his  loyalty.  The 
House  however  acquiesced,  though  the  whole  Colony  were 
filled  with  an  undefined  dread  by  the  act,  and  Thomas  Cush- 
ing  was  elected  in  his  place.  On  the  same  afternoon,  the 
House  revised  the  list  of  Councillors,  and  five,  consisting  of 
Hutchinson,  the  Olivers,  Trowbridge,  and  Lynde,  all  crown 
officers,  were  not  re-elected,  on  the  ground,  as  Samuel  Adams 
afterwards  wrote  to  the  agent  in  England,  that  "  upon  the 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  121 

principle  of  the  best  writers,  a  union  of  the  several  powers 
of  government  in  one  person  is  dangerous  to  liberty."  This 
was  consistency  in  him,  for  as  early  as  in  Shirley's  adminis- 
tration he  had  opposed  the  dangerous  union  of  too  much 
civil  and  military  power  in  one  man.  The  exclusion  of  these 
five,  among  whom  was  a  Judge  of  the  Superior  Court, 
was  resented  by  Bernard,  who,  from  the  whole  number  of 
twenty-eight  elected,  rejected  six  as  an  act  of  retaliation. 
The  House  submitted  without  a  murmur ;  but  the  Governor 
on  the  following  day,  without  reason  or  justice,  sought  to 
constrain  the  election  of  four  of  the  rejected  crown  officers, 
and  in  his  message  accused  the  House  of  having  been  guided 
in  their  votes  "by  private  interests  and  resentments  and 
popular  discontent.' ' 

"It  were  to  be  wished,"  he  continued,  "that  a  veil  could  be 
drawn  over  the  late  disgraceful  scenes.  But  that  cannot  be  done 
until  a  better  understanding  shall  prevail.  The  recent  election  of 
Councillors  is  an  attack  on  government  in  form,  depriving  it  of  its 
best  and  most  able  servants,  whose  only  crime  is  their  fidelity  to  the 
Crown,  and  is  an  ill-judged  and  ill-timed  oppugnation  of  the  king's 
authority." 

The  answer,  which  was  drafted  by  Samuel  Adams,  though 
Hutchinson  states  that  James  Otis  "  was  supposed  to  have 
had  a  principal  share  in  its  composition,"  repelled  the  charge 
of  acting  from  private  interests  and  resentments,  and  de- 
clared that  they  had  "  given  their  suffrages  according  to 
the  dictates  of  their  consciences,  and  the  best  light  of  their 
understandings  " ;  that  it  had  "  ever  been  their  pride  to  cul- 
tivate harmony  and  union  upon  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
virtue  "  ;  and  that  by  dropping  some  of  the  old  Board,  they 
had  "  released  the  judges  from  the  cares  and  perplexities  of 
politics,  and  given  them  an  opportunity  to  make  still  further 
advances  in  the  knowledge  of  the  law."  *     "  Surely,"  con- 

*  The  exclusion  of  crown  officers  from  a  seat  in  the  Legislature  had  long 
been  a  favorite  idea  with  Mr.  Adams.  In  his  Boston  Instructions  of  1764, 
after  recommending  to  the  newly  elected  members  "  the  cultivation  of  har- 

7 


122  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

tinues  the  writer,  "  this  is  not  to  deprive  the  government  of 
its  best  and  ablest  servants,  nor  could  it  be  called  oppugna- 
tion  of  anything,  but  a  dangerous  union  of  legislative  and 
executive  power  in  the  same  persons." 

The  House  remained  firm,  and  refused  to  vote  for  Coun- 
cillors of  the  Governor's  choice ;  the  vacancies  in  the  Board 
therefore  remained  unfilled ;  and  thenceforward  the  Council, 
which  with  Hutchinson  at  its  head  had  been  the  conservative 
branch,  acted  under  the  lead  of  his  successor,  James  Bow- 
doin,  who  was  zealous  in  the  popular  cause. 

The  spirit  of  freedom  was  abroad,  and  to  accommodate  its 
demands  a  gallery  was  opened  in  the  House  for  the  public 
to  attend  the  debates.  No  reports  were  made  of  speeches, 
—  the  journals  affording  only  the  outlines  of  proceedings, 
and  at  times  giving  the  votes  of  the  members  upon  im- 
portant questions.  At  this  time,  debates  were  generally 
confined  to  the  adoption  of  the  reports  of  committees  ap- 
pointed to  express  the  sentiments  of  the  House  on  the  meas- 
ures and  opinions  advanced  by  the  Governor ;  and  as  such 
reports,  either  as  answers  or  resolves,  were  mostly  from  the 
pen  of  Mr.  Adams,  it  must  frequently  have  devolved  upon 
him  to  support  or  explain  the  views  taken  by  the  committees. 
Of  the  character  of  these  debates,  the  State  papers  preserved 
in  the  journals  give  the  only  indication. 

The  remainder  of  this  session  was  occupied  in  discussing 
the  requisition  of  the  Governor  for  the  indemnification  of  the 
sufferers  by  the  Stamp  Act  riots  in  the  previous  year,  and 
the  right  of  the  crown  officers  to  a  seat  in  the  King's  Coun- 
cil. On  the  3d  of  June,  Bernard  informed  the  House  that 
he  had  received  a  letter  from  the  Right  Honorable  Secretary 

mony  and  union  "  in  the  Legislature,  "  which  is  ever  desirable  to  good  men, 
when  founded  in  the  principles  of  virtue  and  public  spirit,"  he  proposes  the 
passage  of  a  law,  "  whereby  the  seats  of  such  gentlemen  as  shall  accept  of 
posts  of  profit  from  the  Crown  or  the  Governor,  while  they  are  members  of  the 
House,  shall  be  vacated."  He  also  recommends  that  the  judges,  "  having  in 
their  minds  an  indifference  to  all  other  affairs,  shall  devote  themselves  wholly 
to  the  duties  of  their  own  department  and  the  further  study  of  the  law." 


1766.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  123 

Conway,  enclosing  two  acts  of  Parliament ;  one  for  securing 
the  dependency  of  the  Colonies  on  the  mother  country,  and 
the  other  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  He  was  ordered, 
he  said,  to  recommend  to  the  House  that  full  and  ample 
compensation  be  made  to  the  sufferers. 

He  also  lamented  that  the  letter  had  not  arrived  before 
the  meeting  of  the  General  Court,  or  the  rejection  of  the 
crown  officers  would  not  have  taken  place ;  and  he  invited 
them  to  choose  again,  among  others,  Hutchinson,  who  had 
been  plunged  in  melancholy  at  the  thought  of  a  retreat  after 
thirty  years'  uninterrupted  concern  in  public  affairs.  So 
anxious  indeed  was  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  remain,  that 
he  had  the  presumption  to  still  occupy  his  seat,  where  he 
was  discovered  by  a  committee  of  the  House. 

It  appeared  subsequently  that  the  demand  for  indemnifi- 
cation made  by  Bernard  was  based  upon  the  simple  "  recom- 
mendation "  of  Secretary  Conway  in  his  circular  letter ;  but 
the  Governor,  in  his  anxiety  to  see  Hutchinson  made  whole, 
used  the  word  "  requisition''  on  his  own  responsibility,  add- 
ing, that  "  the  authority  with  which  it  is  introduced  should 
preclude  all  disputation  about  complying  with  it." 

At  this  time,  the  Province  was  "  hushed  into  silence  "  by 
the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  had  stopped  public  clamor, 
and  "  composed  every  wave  of  popular  disorder  into  a  smooth 
and  peaceful  calm."  "  Every  newspaper  and  pamphlet,  every 
public  and  private  letter  which  arrived  in  America  from 
England,  seemed  to  breathe  a  spirit  of  benevolence,  tender- 
ness, and  generosity."  "  The  letters  from  the  Ministry  to 
the  Governor  recommended  the  mildest,  softest,  and  most 
lenient  and  conciliating  measures ;  and  even  the  resolve  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  recommendation  from  his 
Majesty  concerning  an  indemnification  to  the  sufferers,  was 
conceived  in  the  most  alluring  language."  Such  was  the 
contemporary  record  of  John  Adams,*  who  observed  that  the 
indemnification  was  then  the  reigning  topic  of  conversation. 

*  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  203). 


124  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

The  speech  by  the  Governor,  especially  the  part  relating  to 
the  Council,  was  received  with  indignation.  Samuel  Adams 
considered  it  as  not  less  "  infamous  and  irritating  than  the 
worst  that  ever  came  from  a  Stuart  to  the  English  Parlia- 
ment," and  he  called  the  Province  happy  in  having  for  its 
Governor  one  who  left  the  people  no  option  but  between  per- 
petual watchfulness  and  total  ruin.* 

In  the  reply  of  the  House,  both  of  these  subjects  are  con- 
sidered by  Mr.  Adams,  who  was  its  author,  and  reported  it 
two  days  after  the  appointment  of  the  committee. 

"  Had  the  most  excellent  letter  from  one  of  his  Majesty's  princi- 
pal Secretaries  of  State,  which  has  been  communicated  to  the  House, 
arrived  sooner,  it  could  not  have  prevented  the  freedom  of  our  elec- 
tions, nor  can  we,  on  the  strictest  examination  of  the  transactions  of 
the  day  of  our  general  election,  so  far  as  the  House  was  concerned, 
discover  the  least  reason  for  regret.  So  long  as  we  shall  have  our 
charter  privileges  continued,  we  must  think  ourselves  inexcusable 
if  we  should  suffer  ourselves  to  be  intimidated  in  the  free  exercise 
of  them.  This  exercise  of  our  rights  can  never,  with  any  color  of 
reason,  be  adjudged  an  abuse  of  our  liberty. 

"  We  believe  your  Excellency  is  the  first  Governor  of  this  Prov- 
ince that  ever  formally  called  the  two  Houses  of  Assembly  to  ac- 
count for  their  suffrages,  and  accused  them  of  ingratitude  and  disaf- 
fection to  the  Crown,  because  they  had  not  bestowed  them  on  such 
persons  as,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Governor,  were  quite  necessary 
to  the  administration  of  government.  Had  your  Excellency  been 
pleased  in  season  to  have  favored  us  with  a  list,  and  positive  orders 
whom  to  choose,  we  should  on  your  principles  have  been  without 
excuse.  But  even  the  most  abject  slaves  are  not  to  be  blamed 
for  disobeying  their  master's  will  and  pleasure,  when  it  is  wholly 
unknown  to  them." 

The  report  then  reviews  the  recommendation  contained  in 
Secretary  Conway's  letter,  and  promises  ip  embrace  the  first 
convenient  opportunity  to  consider  and  act  upon  it. 

"  In  the  mean  time  we  cannot  but  observe  that  it  is  conceived 
in  much  higher  and  stronger  terms  in  the  speech  than  in  the  letter. 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Arthur  Lee,  April  19,  1771,  referring  to  this  period. 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  125 

Whether  by  thus  exceeding,  your  Excellency  speaks  of  your  own 
authority  or  a  higher,  is  not  with  us  to  determine."  * 

On  the  24th  of  June,  the  House  appointed  a  committee, 
of  which  Mr.  Adams  was  a  member,  to  prepare  a  special 
answer  to  the  Governor's  speech  in  relation  to  the  proposed 
compensation;  in  which,  after  expressing  their  abhorrence 
of  the  riot,  they  decide  to  refer  the  subject  to  the  next  ses- 
sion, "  that  the  members  might  have  an  opportunity  to  take 
the  minds  and  instructions  of  their  several  towns  thereon." 
A  few  days  later,  the  Governor  again  pushed  the  matter, 
and  the  House  still  deferred  the  subject  to  the  next  session. 
After  an  address  of  thanks  to  the  King  for  his  assent  to  the 
repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  Mr.  Adams  of  course  being  of  the 
committee  to  prepare  it,  the  Assembly  was  adjourned. 

While  these  events  were  happening  in  Massachusetts, 
another  change  was  taking  place  in  the  Ministry.  The 
Marquis  of  Rockingham,  with  several  of  his  Whig  col- 
leagues, after  a  year's  trial,  was  dismissed,  much  to  the 
surprise  and  regret  of  the  liberal  politicians  in  England ; 
but  the  Prime  Minister,  with  all  his  good  qualities  of  heart, 
was  not  the  statesman  for  the  times.  The  Duke  of  Grafton 
threw  up  the  seals  of  Secretary  of  State,  which  were  in  turn 
refused  by  several  noblemen,  and  at  length  were  accepted  by 
the  Duke  of  Richmond.  At  the  head  of  the  new  Cabinet 
was  placed  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  a  Tory;  and  Charles 
Townshend,  one  of  the  promoters  of  the  Stamp  Act,  became 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Pitt,  the  "  Great  Commoner," 
who  had  sprung  from  the  people  to  the  leadership  of  the 
nation,  clouded  the  lustre  of  his  name  by  accepting  a  peer- 
age and  the  office  of  Lord  Privy  Seal.  The  title  of  Earl 
of  Chatham,  however  much  he  may  have  earned  it  by  his 
brilliant  career,  could  add  no  dignity  to  his  character,  while 
his  desertion  of  the  popular  branch  of  Parliament  for  the 
House  of  Lords  was  but  strengthening  a  Ministry  raised  on 
the  downfall  of  Rockingham  and  his  patriot  friends.     In 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  88. 


126  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug.  — Oct. 

America,  however,  the  elevation  to  office  of  Chatham  and 
Camden  was  considered  a  fortunate  offset  to  the  Townshend 
influence. 

Though  Governor  Bernard  professed  to  be  a  friend  to  the 
Colonies,  his  letters,  as  was  subsequently  ascertained,  always 
urged  upon  government  such  a  course  as  should  secure  their 
more  perfect  subordination  to  Great  Britain.  He  was  op- 
posed to  the  several  charters ;  and  in  his  letters  to  the  Minis- 
try, he  complained  of  the  elective  character  of  the  Council 
as  the  "  fatal  ingredient  in  the  Provincial  Constitution.' '  He 
considered  the  only  anchor  of  hope  to  be  the  sovereign 
power,  which  would  secure  obedience  to  its  decrees  if  they 
were  properly  introduced  and  effectually  sustained.  In 
support  of  these  views,  he  made  studied  attempts  to  distort 
every  act  of  popular  rejoicing  on  public  occasions  into  tur- 
bulence and  riot.  The  anniversary  of  the  outbreak  against 
the  Stamp  Act  was  celebrated  with  great  parade  in  Boston, 
and  the  Governor's  party  represented  the  patriotic  toasts  as 
treasonable.  Bernard  also  renewed  his  complaints  of  illicit 
trade.  After  having  long  colluded  with  some  merchants  in 
their  infractions  of  a  revenue  law,  he  now  claimed  the  legal 
penalty  of  treble  forfeits,  and  secretly  reported  the  crowds 
collected  by  some  sudden  attempts  to  enforce  the  law  by 
search-warrants  as  a  general  rising  against  the  execution 
of  the  law. 

Towards  the  close  of  October,  the  Governor  again  called 
the  Legislature  together  to  obtain,  as  he  stated,  a  positive 
answer  to  the  recommendation  made  during  the  previous 
session  as  to  compensating  the  sufferers  by  the  Stamp  Act 
riots.  In  the  discussion  which  ensued,  Joseph  Hawley,  a 
lawyer  of  Northampton,  the  intimate  and  warm  friend  of 
Samuel  Adams,  took  the  leading  part.  He  was  a  man  of 
unblemished  integrity;  and  after  the  year  1766,  when  he 
entered  the  Legislature,  his  strict  religious  principles  and 
sincerity  of  character  gave  a  wide  influence  to  his  opinions. 
Adams  oftener  consulted  him  on  legal  points  than  any  other 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  127 

man,  and  it  is  probable  that  neither  penned  any  very  impor- 
tant public  paper  without  the  revision  of  the  other.  Mr. 
Hawley  was  in  the  Legislature  until  the  war,  and  he  was  ex- 
celled by  none  in  his  stern  zeal  and  uncompromising  hostility 
to  oppression.  He  was  the  most  distinguished  counsellor  in 
Western  Massachusetts,  where  his  practice  was  very  exten- 
sive. During  his  legislative  service,  his  name  appears  on 
many  committees  for  drafting  state  papers.  He  and  Samuel 
Adams  worked  together,  having  the  most  implicit  confidence 
in  each  other's  judgment.  Mr.  Hawley,  in  the  intervals  be- 
tween the  sessions,  resided  in  Hampshire  County,  and  their 
intimacy  was  continued  at  such  times  by  lengthy  correspon- 
dence on  public  affairs. 

Most  of  the  towns  had  voted  in  favor  of  compensating  the 
sufferers,  or  left  it  to  the  discretion  of  their  Representatives. 
The  discussion  in  the  House  was  long  and  animated,  so  that  a 
fortnight  elapsed  before  they  replied  to  the  Governor's  mes- 
sage. During  this  time,  Mr.  Hawley  opposed  compensation 
except  on  condition  of  a  general  amnesty,  which  was  to  in- 
clude several  of  his  clients,  who  were  in  prison  in  Hampshire 
County  for  non-payment  of  fines  and  costs  of  court,  having 
been  convicted  of  riotous  opposition  to  the  Stamp  Act. 
"  Of  those  seeking  compensation,"  said  he,  "  the  chief  is  a 
person  of  unconstitutional  principles,  as  one  day  or  other  he 
will  make  appear."  The  resolves  of  Parliament  were  cited 
in  reply.  "  The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,"  retorted 
Hawley,  "  has  no  right  to  legislate  for  us."  At  these  words 
Otis,  rising  in  his  place,  bowed  and  thanked  him,  saying, 
"  He  has  gone  further  than  I  myself  have  yet  done  in  this 
House."  The  general  opinion  of  Hawley's  integrity  and 
understanding  acted  upon  the  House,  and  a  bill  was  framed, 
granting  compensation  to  the  sufferers  and  pardon  to  the 
offenders,  even  to  the  returning  of  the  fines  which  had  been 
paid.  It  is  most  probable  that  Adams  was  at  first  opposed 
to  making  any  compensation,  but,  being  on  the  committee 
with  Hawley,  was  induced  to  acquiesce  by  the  general  am- 


128  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct.,  1766. 

nesty  clause.  Hawley's  name  appears  as  chairman  of  the 
committee  to  answer  the  Governor's  speech  and  to  draw  up 
the  resolve  setting  forth  the  motives  which  induced  the  House 
to  pass  the  bill.  It  was  adopted  in  December,  the  House 
having  meanwhile  taken  a  recess  in  which  to  consult  their 
constituents. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

The  Crown  Officers  misrepresent  the  Town  to  the  Ministry.  —  Dennys  Deberdt 
appointed  Special  Agent  of  the  Assembly.  —  Adams  corresponds  with  the 
new  Agent  and  with  Christopher  Gadsden.  —  He  desires  Union  and  Cor- 
respondence among  the  Merchants  throughout  the  Continent.  —  Hutchin- 
son attempts  to  force  himself  into  the  Council.  —  Adams  writes  on  the 
Subject  to  the  Agent  in  behalf  of  the  Assembly.  —  He  liberates  a  Slave 
presented  to  his  Wife. 

In  November  of  the  previous  year,  Mr.  Adams  had  ex- 
pressed his  dissatisfaction  with  the  apparent  want  of  zeal 
manifested  by  Jackson,  the  Colonial  agent  in  England. 
This  opinion  he  repeated  indirectly  in  state  papers  of  the 
House  in  the  following  session.  He  had  much  more  confi- 
dence in  the  abilities  of  Deberdt,  who  had  already  served 
the  Province  as  its  special  agent  in  urging  the  petitions 
prepared  by  the  Congress  at  New  York.  This  lack  of  en- 
ergy was  now  particularly  feared;  for,  after  the  August 
celebration  in  honor  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  it  was 
known  that  Paxton,  Marshal  of  the  Court  of  Admiralty,  was 
to  be  sent  to  England,  with  the  intention  of  representing  there 
the  interests  and  statements  of  the  crown  officers,  and  to  ap- 
pear as  the  special  friend  of  Oliver  and  Hutchinson.  The 
Governor  had  not  lost  the  opportunity  of  advising  the  Minis- 
try, after  his  own  views,  of  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the 
Province.  An  attempt  had  been  made  by  Paxton  and  the  un- 
der-sheriff to  search  the  house  of  Daniel  Malcom  for  a  second 
time,  under  the  disputed  authority  of  writs  of  assistance. 
The  sturdy  patriot  had  refused  to  open  his  doors,  and  in 
the  altercation  which  ensued  a  crowd  had  gathered.  These 
and  other  incidents  had  been  misrepresented  to  the  govern- 
ment.    On  the  8th  of  October,  a  town  meeting  was  called, 

VOL.    I.  9 


130  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct.  — Dec. 

and  a  committee,  of  which  Mr.  Adams  was  a  member,  was 
appointed  to  wait  upon  the  Governor  in  behalf  of  the  town, 
and  desire  him  to  give  the  Secretary  orders  to  furnish  the 
town  clerk  with  copies  of  all  the  depositions  relating  to  the 
information  given  the  custom-house  officers  and  the  proceed- 
ings thereon,  so  that  the  town,  having  knowledge  of  their 
accusers  and  of  the  nature  and  design  of  the  testimony  taken, 
might  have  it  in  their  power  to  rectify  mistakes  and  counter- 
work the  designs  of  any  who  would  represent  them  in  a  dis- 
advantageous light  to  his  Majesty's  ministers.  The  committee 
reported  in  the  afternoon  that  the  Governor,  by  order  of  the 
Council,  considered  the  depositions  secret ;  but  that  he  had 
no  difficulty  himself  in  complying  with  the  request  of  the 
town,  if  the  Council  should  so  advise  him.  This  assertion, 
however,  was  contradicted  by  the  Council,  who  transmitted 
the  depositions  to  the  meeting,  with  a  note,  stating  that 
"  they  had  never  given  any  advice  either  for  or  against  the 
said  testimony  being  transmitted."  Otis,  Adams,  Rowe, 
Hancock,  and  others,  were  then  appointed  a  committee  to 
take  the  depositions  into  consideration,  and  procure  such 
evidence  as  might  be  further  necessary  to  set  this  matter 
in  its  proper  light. 

The  subject  occupied  the  attention  of  the  public  for  some 
days.  Town  meetings  were  held,  and  every  effort  was  made 
to  counteract  the  known  intentions  of  the  designing  Gov- 
ernor and  his  officers.  The  address  of  the  freeholders  and 
other  inhabitants  to  the  Governor,  on  the  22d  of  October, 
and  that  to  Deberdt  on  the  26th,  were  both  written  by  Mr. 
Adams. 

It  was  necessary  now  that  the  danger  from  Paxton's  voy- 
age to  London  should  be  met  by  the  efforts  of  an  active  as 
well  as  an  honest  friend  of  the  people ;  and  the  House,  to- 
wards the  close  of  the  session  in  December,  dismissed  Jack- 
son from  the  service  of  the  Province,  and  appointed  Dennys 
Deberdt  as  its  own  special  agent.  In  that  capacity,  he  was 
the  frequent  recipient  of  letters,  both  private  and  public,  from 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  131 

Mr.  Adams,  who  for  several  years  made  him  the  medium  of 
reaching  the  Ministry. 

The  first  letter  of  Mr.  Adams  to  the  agent,  after  this  ap- 
pointment, was  on  a  subject  which  engaged  his  pen  for  some 
years  afterwards,  —  that  of  billeting  soldiers  upon  the  in- 
habitants of  the  Province.  In  Parliament's  making  provis- 
ion for  the  royal  troops  at  the  expense  of  the  people  of  the 
Colonies,  the  sagacious  patriot,  in  common  with  his  fellow- 
citizens,  saw  the  commencement  of  military  rule  with  which 
the  government  could  enforce  any  arbitrary  demands  that  it 
might  conceive.  The  first  instance  therefore  which  could 
act  as  a  precedent  in  Massachusetts  awoke  his  anxiety. 

Soon  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Legislature  in  Decem- 
ber, a  vessel  was  driven  into  port  by  stress  of  weather 
having  on  board  two  companies  of  royal  artillery.  The 
General  Court  not  being  in  session,  the  Governor,  by  the 
advice  of  the  Council,  directed  that  provision  should  be 
made  for  them  at  the  expense  of  the  Province.  The  prece- 
dent had  been  made  by  the  Governor  and  Council,  when 
a  new  company  was  established  at  the  expense  of  the  Prov- 
ince, and  without  the  consent  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, to  protect  the  stamps  deposited  at  Castle  William. 
At  that  time  Samuel  Adams  had  declared  that  "  if  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  could  raise  and  pay  one  company,  they 
might  ten  or  a  hundred,  and  at  their  pleasure  subject  the 
people  to  be  governed  by  a  standing  army."  The  Council 
answered  that  they  were  "  by  no  means  fond  of  exercising 
such  a  power,  and  wish  the  occasion  for  it  had  never  arisen 
and  may  never  arise  again."  In  a  twelvemonth  the  occa- 
sion had  arisen.  Earlier  in  the  year,  the  Assembly  of  New 
York  refused  to  make  provision  for  quartering  the  King's 
troops,  and  Parliament  passed  an  act  to  suspend  the  legis- 
lative power  of  the  Assembly  until  the  billeting  act  was  com- 
plied with. 

Mr.  Adams  applied  himself  to  this  subject  with  the  same 
assiduity  that  marked  his  every  effort  in  the  cause.     Several 


132  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

of  his  letters  written  at  this  time  have  come  to  light.  Two 
of  these  are  to  Deberdt,  to  whom  he  explains  the  evil  de- 
signs which  his  penetration  had  already  divined.  His  fear 
of  the  quartering  of  a  military  force  in  the  Colonies  had 
commenced  with  the  first  acts  of  oppression,  and  his  earliest 
public  paper,  of  which  any  record  exists,  urges  upon  the 
Representatives  a  decrease  in  the  military  establishment  of 
the  Province.  He  now  instructed  Deberdt  to  oppose  the 
apprehended  establishment  of  a  military  force  in  America, 
as  needless  for  protection  and  dangerous  to  liberty. 

"Certainly,"  he  continues,  "the  best  way  for  Great  Britain  to 
make  her  Colonies  a  real  and  lasting  benefit  is  to  give  them  all 
consistent  indulgence  in  trade,  and  to  remove  any  occasion  of  their 
suspecting  that  their  liberties  are  in  danger.  While  any  act  of  Par- 
liament is  in  force  which  has  the  least  appearance  of  a  design  to 
raise  a  revenue  out  of  them,  their  jealousy  will  be  awake."  * 

On  the  11th  of  December,  he  wrote  to  Christopher  Gads- 
den, whom  Bancroft  calls  "  the  patriot  most  like  himself," 
and  having  felicitated  him  upon  the  Colonial  Congress  of 
which  Gadsden  had  been  a  member,  and  towards  which  the 
writer  had  offered  the  first  suggestion,  he  continues :  — 

"  But  is  there  not  reason  to  fear  that  the  liberties  of  the  Colonies 
may  be  infringed  in  a  less  observable  manner  ?  The  Stamp  Act 
was  like  the  sword  that  Nero  wished  for,  to  have  decollated  the 
Roman  people  at  a  stroke ;  or  like  Job's  sea  monster,  in  the  height- 
ened language  of  Young,  '  who  sinks  a  river,  and  who  thirsts  again.' 
The  sight  of  such  an  enemy  at  a  distance  is  formidable ;  while  the 
lurking  serpent  lies  concealed,  and  not  noticed  by  the  unwary  pas- 
senger, darts  its  venom.  It  is  necessary  that  each  Colony  should  be 
awake  and  upon  its  guard.  You  may  ask  me  what  is  the  danger. 
I  answer,  none  from  his  present  Majesty  and  the  Parliament  in  their 
intention,  yet  such  is  human  frailty  '  that  the  best  may  err  some- 
times ' ;  and  consider,  sir,  we  are  remote  from  the  national  Parlia- 

*  Letter  to  Deberdt,  Dec.  16  and  17,  1766.  Autograph  letters  of  Samuel 
Adams  to  Deberdt,  on  public  questions,  exist,  dated  Oct.  26,  Nov.  11,  12, 
and  Dec.  2,  16,  and  18,  1766. 


1766.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  133 

ment,  and  unrepresented.  You  are  aware  that  what  are  called  Acts 
of  Trade  sensibly  affect  the  Colonies.  May  not  such  acts  be  made 
through  the  inadvertency  of  our  friends,  or  for  want  of  suitable 
intelligence  from  the  Colonies,  as  may  not  only  injure  their  trade 
but  wound  their  liberties?  Suppose,  for  instance,  that  sometime 
hereafter,  under  the  pretext  of  regulating  trade  only,  a  revenue 
should  be  designed  to  be  raised  out  of  the  Colonies  ;  would  it  signify 
anything  whether  it  be  called  a  Stamp  Act  or  an  act  for  the  regul- 
ation of  the  trade  of  America  ?  I  wish  there  was  a  union  and  a 
correspondence  kept  up  among  the  merchants  throughout  the  conti- 
nent.    But  I  am  still  upon  the  liberties  of  the  Colonies. 

"  I  should  tell  you  what  perhaps  you  know  already,  were  I  to 
mention  an  act  of  Parliament  I  have  lately  seen,  wherein  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  of  any  Province  wherein  his  Majesty's  troops 
may  happen  to  be,  are  enjoined  to  make  certain  provision  for  them 
at  the  expense  of  the  people  of  such  Province.  Tell  me,  sir, 
whether  this  is  not  taxing  the  Colonies  as  effectually  as  the  Stamp 
Act  ?  and  if  so,  either  we  have  complained  without  reason  or  we 
have  still  reason  to  complain.  I  have  heard  that  George  Grenville 
was  told  to  his  face  that  he  missed  it  in  his  politics,  for  he  should 
have  stationed  a  sufficient  number  of  troops  in  America  before  he 
sent  the  Stamp  Act  among  them.  Had  that  been  the  case,  it  is 
possible  your  Congress  might  have  been  turned  out  of  doors.  New 
York  has  had  regular  troops  among  them  for  some  months.  I  never 
could  hear  a  reason  given  to  my  satisfaction  why  they  were  ordered, 
at  least  to  remain  there  so  long.  Perhaps  I  am  captious  ;  however, 
I  always  looked  upon  a  standing  army,  especially  in  a  time  of  peace, 
not  only  as  a  disturbance,  but  in  every  respect  dangerous  to  civil 
community.  Surely,  then,  we  cannot  consent  to  their  quartering 
among  us ;  and  how  hard  it  is  to  be  obliged  to  pay  our  money  to 
subsist  them.  If  a  number  should  happen  to  come  into  a  Province 
through  necessity,  and  stand  in  need  of  supplies,  as  is  the  case  at 
present  here,  is  it  not  a  disgrace  to  us  to  suppose  that  we  should  be 
so  wanting  in  humanity  or  in  regard  to  our  sovereign  as  to  refuse  to 
grant  him  the  aid  with  our  free  consent?"* 

The  subject  was  considered  early  in  the  next  session,  when 
the  House  desired  to  be  informed  by  the  Governor  whether 

*  Letter  to  Christopher  Gadsden,  Dec.  11,  1766. 


134  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan.  — March, 

any  provision  had  been  made  at  the  expense  of  the  Province 
for  the  troops  lately  arrived,  and  by  whom?  A  lengthy 
discussion  ensued,  giving  the  House  an  opportunity  of  add- 
ing their  opposition  to  the  Billeting  Act,  against  which  the 
Assembly  of  New  York  was  still  contending. 

It  was  the  Governor's  policy  to  keep  the  Legislature  in 
session  for  brief  periods,  —  summoning  them  only  to  hear 
instructions  and  orders  from  the  Ministry.  The  Council  and 
the  House  were  now  acting  in  harmony,  and  gave  his  Excel- 
lency continual  cause  for  anxiety  and  matter  for  his  letters 
to  England.  At  the  opening  of  the  session,  January  28, 
1767,  he  briefly  recommended  the  support  of  the  author- 
ity of  the  government,  and  other  duties,  which,  truly  pur- 
sued, would  leave  "no  room  for  disagreement  or  dissatis- 
faction." 

To  recommendations  which  seemed  to  imply  that  the 
House  was  negligent  in  the  performance  of  their  duties, 
they  replied  that  they  understood  their  rights  and  powers, 
and  those  of  the  civil  officers  of  the  Province ;  that  those 
rights  and  powers  would  be  firmly  maintained,  and  the  au- 
thority of  government  supported  ;  and  that  they  should  feel 
greatly  rejoiced  to  find  his  Excellency  exciting  and  animat- 
ing them  in  the  discharge  of  that  important  duty. 

They  then  resumed  the  subject  of  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor's occupying  a  seat  in  the  Council.  Having  been  ex- 
cluded in  a  previous  session  at  the  annual  election  for 
councillors,  Hutchinson  determined  to  claim  a  seat  by  vir- 
tue of  his  office  as  Lieutenant-Governor.  The  House  in- 
sisted on  his  removal,  considering  his  presence  as  "  a  new 
and  additional  instance  of  ambition  and  lust  of  power." 
The  Council,  now  under  the  lead  of  the  resolute  Bowdoin, 
agreeing  with  them,  Hutchinson  at  last  resigned  his  claim 
and  retired.  It  might  well  be  termed  "  a  lust  of  power." 
Not  only  was  he  Chief  Justice,  Judge  of  Probate,  and  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, but  several  of  his  relatives  held  lucrative 
positions  under  government,  and  yet  his  rapacity  clutched 


17C7.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  135 

at  every  additional  means  of  advancement.  Samuel  Adams 
considered  him  the  most  dangerous  man  to  American  liberty 
in  the  Province,  and  lost  no  opportunity  to  oppose  his  de- 
signs. On  the  3d  of  March,  the  House  appointed  Hawley, 
Otis,  Adams,  Sheafe,  and  Bowers  a  committee  to  write  to 
Deberdt  in  relation  to  Hutchinson's  claim  to  a  seat  in  the 
Council.  A  voluminous  paper,  written  by  Adams,  was  re- 
ported on  the  16th.  The  rough  draft,  endorsed  "  read  and 
accepted,"  is  preserved  entire,  with  the  erasures  and  inter- 
lineations in  his  own  hand.  It  differs  in  no  respect  from  the 
copy  in  the  journal  of  the  House,  with  which  it  has  been 
compared.  The  subject  is  carefully  considered  in  all  its  bear- 
ings, and  the  infamous  construction  put  upon  the  charter 
by  those  who  had  been  appointed  to  search  for  precedents  to 
the  usurpation  is  completely  exposed.  The  answer  of  the 
House  to  the  Governor's  speech  on  the  same  subject,  at  the 
opening  of  the  session,  was  enclosed  to  the  agent  with  the 
letter.  The  reasons  urged  by  Bernard  in  Hutchinson's  be- 
half were,  that  the  Lieutenant-Governor  was  empowered  by 
the  charter,  equally  with  the  Governor,  to  administer  the 
oaths  to  the  returned  members ;  that,  "  in  order  to  execute 
that  trust,  he  must  necessarily  meet  them  on  the  day  when 
they  were  returned,  and  met  to  form  the  General  Assembly ; 
and  because  the  duty  of  his  trust  must  bring  him  among 
the  Representatives,  before  they  themselves  were  qualified 
to  sit  and  act  in  General  Assembly,  therefore  that  power*  or 
authority  gave  him  a  right  to  a  place  and  seat  in  Council  at 
all  times  during  the  being  of  the  General  Assembly,  although 
the  full  exercise  of  that  power  must  end  and  be  determined, 
and  the  trust  fully  discharged,  before  the  Representatives 
themselves  have  a  right  to  take  a  place  or  to  do  any  one  act 
in  General  Assembly,  and  consequently  before  the  General 
Assembly  existed."  Pointing  out  the  "  absurdity  of  this 
reasoning,"  which  the  writer  says  "must  be  obvious  to  every 
man,"  Mr.  Adams  continues :  — 

"  As  it  is  said  that,  in  that  paragraph,  he  [the  Lieutenant- Gov- 


136  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

ernor]  has  given  to  him  an  immediate,  original,  and  inherent  right 
to  administer  the  oaths  to  the  returned  members  of  the  House,  it 
may  be  matter  of  curious  inquiry,  why  it  is  chosen  as  a  consequence 
that  a  right  to  a  place  or  seat  in  Council  is  thereby  given,  rather 
than  a  right  to  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  According 
to  this  manner  of  deducing  inferences,  any  one  may,  among  the  infi- 
nite variety  of  propositions  altogether  foreign  to  any  given  premises, 
take  an  absolute  and  arbitrary  liberty  to  infer  some  one  favorite  con- 
clusion, rather  than  any  other  which  may  not  so  well  suit  his  humor 
or  interest.  When  the  imagination  is  suffered  to  rove  at  random, 
and  phantoms  are  made  use  of  to  establish  power  and  authority 
supported  neither  by  the  charter  nor  by  reason  or  necessity,  it  is 
not  easy  to  conceive  why  a  right  of  still  greater  importance  than  a 
seat  without  a  voice  was  not  imagined.  It  was  full  as  easy  to  col- 
lect from  the  charter  a  right  in  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  as  such, 
to  a  voice  in  Council,  or  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  or  in 
either,  as  should  best  suit  his  fancy,  or  in  each  at  different  times. 
But  perhaps  it  was  judged  prudent  to  begin  with  lesser  claims,  and 
gradually  to  advance  to  greater,  as  imaginary  countenances  should 
become  more  familiar. 

"  We  are  the  more  astonished  at  this  attempt  of  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  as,  at  his  own  desire,  he  has  been  so  lately  admitted  to 
the  floor  of  the  House,  and  there  publicly  acknowledged  the  generous 
compensation  granted  him  for  his  losses  and  sufferings  in  the  late 
times  of  universal  distress,  despair,  and  of  course  of  great  confusion. 
At  the  same  time,  he  gave  the  highest  assurances  of  his  affection  for 
his  native  country,  and  of  the  fresh  obligations  he  felt  himself  under 
to  support  the  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges  of  his  countrymen. 
After  all  this,  it  is  truly  surprising  that  he  should  make  an  attack 
upon  the  charter,  and  endeavor  to  support  a  claim,  jointly  with  his 
Excellency,  which,  if  they  attain  their  ends,  has  a  manifest  tendency 
very  unduly  to  influence  and  alter,  if  not  totally  to  subvert,  the  free 
legislative  of  the  Province. 

"  We  cannot  but  think  this  attempt  of  his  Honor  the  more  unnat- 
ural, as  he  has  so  long  enjoyed  every  honor  and  favor  in  the  power 
of  his  native  country  to  confer  upon  him.  Some  of  his  high  offices 
are  so  incompatible  with  others  of  them,  that  in  all  probability  they 
never  will  hereafter  be,  as  they  never  were  heretofore,  thus  accumu- 


1 


1767.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  137 


lated  by  any  man.  This  gentleman  was  for  years  together  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, Councillor,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Province,  and  a 
Judge  of  the  Probate.  Three  of  these  lucrative  as  well  as  honor- 
ary places  he  now  enjoys,  and  yet  is  not  content.  It  is  easy  to  con- 
ceive how  undue  an  influence  the  two  first  must  give. 

"  The  office  of  a  chief  justice  is  most  certainly  incompatible  with 
that  of  a  politician.  The  cool  and  impartial  administration  of  com- 
mon justice  can  never  harmonize  with  the  meanders  and  windings 
of  a  modern  politician.  The  integrity  of  the  judge  may  sometimes 
embarrass  the  politician,  but  there  is  infinitely  more  danger,  in  the 
long  run,  of  the  politician's  spoiling  the  good  and  upright  judge. 
This  has  often  been  the  case,  and  in  the  course  of  things  may  be 
expected  again. 

"  As  the  Governor  and  the  Lieutenant-Governor  now  firmly  per-  , 
sist  in  the  claim,  and  his  Excellency  seems  determined  to  make  a 
representation  of  this  matter  home,  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  be 
particularly  attentive  to  it,  though  both  of  them  have  in  effect  de- 
sired the  present  House  to  remain  quiet  and  inactive.  We  must 
therefore  earnestly  recommend  it  to  you  to  make  it  a  matter  of 
your  special  care,  and  if  any  stir  should  be  made  about  it  in  Eng- 
land, that  you  would  use  your  utmost  endeavors  to  prevent  a  deter- 
mination thereon  till  we  can  be  heard ;  or  otherwise,  that  you  make 
the  best  use  you  can  of  the  papers  enclosed." 

We  have  in  this  letter  an  illustration  of  the  logical  severity 
and  purity  of  style  characterizing  the  writings  of  Samuel 
Adams.  He  never  overdid  any  private  or  public  paper. 
Always  keeping  within  the  bounds  of  reason  and  legal  pro- 
cedure, he  had  nothing  to  retract,  and  no  indiscreet  ebullition 
of  passion  or  prejudioe  to  regret.  '  His  knowledge  of  man- 
kind, and  an  almost  infallible  judgment,  gave  the  stamp  of 
wisdom  to  all  his  measures,  not  one  of  which  had  to  be  re- 
called after  passing  final  revision.  In  these  trying  times, 
without  precedent  to  guide  him,  and  steering  into  an  un- 
known sea  of  perilous  experiment  in  opposition  to  the  arbi- 
trary course  of  the  government,  the  patriot  might  well 
pause  or  advance  with  caution.  But  the  certainty  of  being 
right  nerved  the  leaders  to  an  unshrinking  fortitude,  and 


138  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

pointed  out,  to  at  least  the  more  discerning,  the  dim  but 
glorious  future.  Among  the  remnants  of  the  Adams  papers 
are  rough  drafts  of  letters  written  during  this  session  to  the 
agent  and  others  in  England,  relating  to  public  matters, 
some  of  which  appear  to  have  been  adopted  by  the  House. 

The  question  of  slavery  had  been  discussed  in  Boston  for 
nearly  a  year.  At  the  town  meeting  in  May,  1766,  the  Rep- 
resentatives had  been  instructed  to  advocate  its  total  abo- 
lition in  the  Province.  The  subject  came  up  again  at  a  town 
meeting  on  the  16th  of  March,  1767,  when  it  was  decided  to 
adhere  to  that  part  of  the  town's  instructions.  It  was  prob- 
ably about  this  time  that  an  incident  occurred,  revealing  the 
sentiments  of  Samuel  Adams  in  regard  to  slavery.  It  was 
related,  in  1837,  by  Mrs.  Mary  Avery  of  Shrewsbury,  Mass., 
the  niece  of  Samuel  Adams.  She  was  then  eighty-two  years 
of  age,  having  been  born  in  February,  1755,  but  retained  her 
powers  of  memory  in  a  remarkable  degree.  Mrs.  Avery 
stated  that  when  she  was  eight  or  ten  years  old  (1764  or 


1 

1766),  a  female  slave  called  "  Surry  "  was  given  to  her  aunt, 

Mrs.  Adams,  and  that  on  her  returning  home  and  mention- 
ing the  gift  to  her  husband,  he  said  to  her  immediately,  "  A 
slave  cannot  live  in  my  house.  If  she  comes,  she  must  be 
free."  He  accordingly  liberated  her  on  her  going  into  his 
family,  where  she  lived  many  years,  and  where  she  died  in 
the  midst  of  kind  ministrations  both  to  her  body  and  soul.* 
The  agent  in  England,  who  had  access  to  members  of  the 
Ministry,  had  reason  to  believe  from  his  interviews,  espe- 
cially with  Shelburne,  the  Secretary  of  State  for  the  South- 
ern Department,  that  the  feeling  towards  the  Colonies  was 

*  The  gentleman  to  whom  the  author  is  indebted  for  the  above  anecdote  (the 
Rev.  George  Allen  of  Worcester,  Mass.)  adds  in  his  letter  :  "I  have  thought 
the  anecdote  above  related  worth  preserving,  and  have  therefore  taken  the 
liberty  to  send  it  to  you,  who  have  so  many  materials  for  the  biography  of  a 
master  spirit  in  an  age  which  shaped  the  destinies  of  the  world.  It  serves  to 
show  the  unity  of  his  character,  and  that  the  love  of  liberty,  for  which  he  strove 
so  early  and  with  so  much  zeal  and  constancy,  was  at  home  with  him  and  in- 
deed a  part  of  his  very  being." 


1767.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  139 

modified  despite  the  defeat  of  the  government  party  and  the 
withdrawal  of  Chatham.  Shelburne  proposed  changes  in 
certain  departments  favorable  to  American  liberties,  but  his 
colleagues  disapproved  of  them.  He  was  not  entirely  com- 
mitted to  the  policy  in  the  Billeting  Act,  and  objected  to 
the  dependence  of  the  judges.  Deberdt  wrote  to  Samuel 
Adams  his  impressions  of  the  state  of  affairs.  The  affection 
which  still  warmed  in  the  hearts  of  the  Colonists  towards 
England,  and  which  it  took  years  of  oppression  to  eradicate, 
is  shown  in  the  reply :  — 

Boston,  May  9,  1767. 

Sib: — Your  favor  of  10th  February  and  9th  March  came  to  hand. 
It  gives  me  the  greatest  satisfaction  to  find  that  this  Province  stands 
in  an  agreeable  point  of  light  with  the  Ministry  and  the  Parliament, 
and  I  hope  with  our  gracious  Sovereign  himself.  The  nation  has 
no  reason  to  be  offended  with  us,  or  to  entertain  any  jealousy  of  us. 
We  are  naturally  attached  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain.  We  es- 
teem them,  not  barely  as  fellow-subjects,  but  as  brethren  of  the  same 
blood.  We  can  look  back  a  few  years,  and  find  the  same  men  the 
fathers  of  us  all.  Why  then  should  Britain  hate  America,  or  they 
envy  her  ?  Our  dependence  is  mutual ;  our  interest  is  undivided ; 
one  cannot  be  sensibly  injured,  but  the  other  must  feel  it. 

I  now  send  you  the  journal  of  the  House  for  the  remaining  part 
of  the  year.  You  will  find  in  the  beginning  of  February  some 
messages  between  the  Governor  and  the  House  relating  to  the  sup- 
ply of  about  seventy  of  his  Majesty's  troops,  arrived  here  last  fall. 
Heretofore  it  has  been  the  practice  of  this  government  to  make  pro- 
vision in  such  cases  by  an  act  of  their  own.  Thus  they  granted  to 
their  sovereign  the  necessary  aid  of  their  own  free  accord,  which  was 
strictly  constitutional ;  and  I  am  satisfied  the  people  would  always  be 
ready  cheerfully  to  make  such  grants  upon  all  future  occasions. 
Does  not  an  act  of  Parliament  made  to  oblige  us  in  this  case  de- 
prive us  of  our  honor  as  well  as  our  right,  and  imply  a  mistrust  of 
us  in  the  mother  country?  It  is  probable  some  persons  here  had 
induced  the  Ministry  to  believe  it  would  have  been  refused  by  us, 
and  argued  from  thence  the  necessity  of  the  Parliament's  interfering. 
But  there  is  no  room  for  such  a  suggestion.     If  the  question  should 


140  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May,  1767. 

at  any  time  be  put,  I  am  persuaded  the  people  would  show  their 
loyalty  in  this  as  they  have  done  in  all  other  requests.  I  wish,  if 
our  enemies  should  put  an  ill  construction  upon  this  matter,  it  might 
be  thus  explained,  for  it  is  the  truth.  The  House  made  you  a  grant 
for  your  services  for  one  year,  as  you  will  see  by  the  journal  of 
March.  His  Excellency  did  not  think  proper  to  sign  it ;  perhaps  he 
will  assign  the  reason  at  the  May  session,  when  it  will  no  doubt  be 
again  considered. 

Your  constant  endeavors  to  serve  this  people  merit  their  warmest 
gratitude  as  well  as  an  ample  recompense ;  and  I  hope,  sir,  you  will 
not  fail  of  an  infinitely  better  reward  than  it  is  in  their  power  to 
give  you. 

I  am,  with  very  great  esteem,  sir, 

Your  sincere  friend  and  humble  servant, 

Samuel  Adams. 
Dennts  Deberdt,  Esq. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Adams  re-elected  to  the  Assembly.  —  Arrival  of  Recruits  from  Scotland.  — 
The  King  and  Ministry  resolved  to  draw  a  Revenue  from  the  Colonies.  — 
Revenue  Acts  passed  by  Parliament,  and  a  Board  of  Custom  Commission- 
ers appointed  for  Boston.  —  Reception  of  the  News  by  the  Patriots. — 
Samuel  Adams  and  Independence.  —  Opinions  of  James  Otis.  — Of  Andrew 
Eliot.  —  Of  Josiah  Quincy.  —  Joseph  Hawley.  —  Bancroft's  description  of 
Adams.  —  Meeting  of  the  Legislature.  — Adams  drafts  the  celebrated  Letter 
to  Deberdt,  the  Petition  to  the  King,  and  Letters  to  several  English  Noble- 
men.  —  They  are  published  in  England  as  "  The  True  Sentiments  of 
America."  —  He  prepares  a  Circular  Letter  to  the  other  Colonies,  and 
secures  its  Adoption  by  the  House.  —  Its  Effect  in  England  and  America. 
—  Public  Celebrations.  —  The  Governor  writes  to  England  for  Troops.  — 
Earl  Hillsborough  denounces  the  Circular  Letter.  —  Adams  labors  for  the 
Removal  of  Governor  Bernard,  whom  he  suspects  of  Treachery  to  the 
Province. 

At  the  May  elections  this  year,  Adams,  Cushing,  and  Han- 
cock were  chosen  to  the  Legislature,  which  was  convened  by 
the  Governor,  May  27th.  As  usual,  Thomas  Cushing  was 
elected  Speaker,  and  Samuel  Adams  Clerk.  The  subject  of 
quartering  troops  on  the  Province,  without  the  consent  of  the 
people's  representatives,  again  came  up,  on  the  arrival  from 
Scotland  of  recruits  for  the  Fourteenth  Regiment  of  Foot  un- 
der Ensign  Dalrymple.  The  Governor  advised  the  House  of 
the  fact,  and  that  he  had  ordered  them  to  the  barracks  of  the 
Castle.  The  Council,  on  his  application  to  them  for  the  usual 
allowances,  had  referred  him  to  the  House.  Mr.  Adams  was 
one  of  a  committee,  with  Otis,  Hawley,  Dexter,  and  others,  to 
reply.  They  reported  a  brief  resolve  that  such  provision  be 
made,  while  they  remained,  —  the  usual  course  towards 
troops  occasionally  in  the  Province.  This  resolution  showed 
that,  while  the  House  were  disposed  to  comply  with  an  act 
of  Parliament,  they  saw  and  feared  the  first  steps  towards 


142  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

establishing  an  armed  force  in  the  Province,  and  that  the 
parent  government  was  determined  to  carry  out  the  act, 
however  oppressive  and  unpopular. 

Mr.  Adams  was  also  on  the  committee  to  reply  to  the 
Governor's  opening  speech,  in  which  he  had  advised  the  de- 
spatch of  public  business,  and  "  a  spirit  of  harmony  in  the 
public  councils,  which  seemed  to  have  lately  departed  from 
the  several  branches  of  the  government."  He  declared  that 
he  "  should  not  decline  the  full  exercise  of  the  powers  of  his 
office,  yet  intended  to  use  them  with  due  moderation.  "  Un- 
necessary disputes,"  he  said,  "  were  expensive,  and  he  hoped 
would  be  avoided."  The  House  replied  that  they  were  not 
sensible  of  any  act  on  their  part,  which  tended  to  interrupt 
the  general  harmony.  They  referred  to  the  misrepresenta- 
tions of  the  Province  to  the  government,  and  added  that  they 
should  be  glad  to  receive  proof  which  would  enable  them 
to  assure  the  people  that  the  Governor  was  not  their  author. 
As  regarded  his  use  of  power,  they  reminded  him  that '  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  an  indiscreet  use  of  legal  power,  of  which 
they  must  form  their  own  judgment. 

"  There  are  matters  that  immediately  concern  his  Majesty's  gov- 
ernment of  this  Province,  which  properly  now  come  before  us. 
These  we  shall  despatch  in  as  short  a  time  as  will  admit  of  a  due 

deliberation  upon  them As  the  rights  of  this  people  are 

now  intrusted  to  us,  it  is  our  indispensable  duty  to  maintain  and 
defend  them.  We  hope  none  of  them  will  be  drawn  into  question ; 
but  should  that  be  the  case,  we  are  bound  in  conscience  to  contend 
for  them,  and  therefore  we  shall  not  think  the  dispute  on  our  part 
unnecessary,  or  the  time  employed  in  it  misspent."  * 

To  raise  a  revenue  from  America,  despite  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  was  still  the  policy  of  the  leading  statesmen 
in  England.  Parliament  now  regretted  the  repeal  as  much 
as  the  act  itself  had  been  condemned  a  year  before.  A  feel- 
ing of  injured  pride  and  mortified  ambition  was  expressed. 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  June  2,  1767. 


1767.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  143 

The  King,  who  regarded  the  repeal  as  a  "  fatal  compliance, " 
was  made  to  believe  that  he  had  been  humiliated,  and  the 
courtiers  urged  Townshend  to  retrieve  the  dignity  of  the 
Crown  by  some  financial  measure  which  should  establish  the 
authority  of  Parliament  over  the  Colonies  beyond  question. 
The  King,  anxious  to  maintain  his  prerogative,  favored  the 
idea.  Chatham,  hitherto  the  great  advocate  of  Colonial 
rights,  was  rendered  useless  by  ill  health,  and  Townshend, 
boasting  "  that  he  knew  how  to  draw  a  revenue  from  the 
Colonies  without  giving  them  offence,"  announced  his  new 
project  in  the  Cabinet.  Grenville  and  Conway,  the  latter 
still  Secretary  of  State,  gave  it  their  approval.  "I  am 
still,"  said  Townshend,  "  a  firm  advocate  for  the  Stamp  Act, 
—  for  its  principle  and  for  the  duty.  I  laugh  at  the  distinc- 
tion between  internal  and  external  taxes.  I  know  no  such 
distinction.  It  is  perfect  nonsense."  Camden,  who  had 
lately  asserted  with  the  Colonists  that  taxation  and  repre- 
sentation were  inseparable,  now  declared  that  his  doubts 
were  removed  by  the  declaration  of  Parliament  itself,  and 
that  its  authority  must  be  maintained.  The  Chatham  power 
and  influence  were  overthrown  in  Parliament.  Shelburne, 
who  for  a  time  was  an  advocate  of  some  modifications  favor- 
able to  the  Colonists,  was  overruled  by  his  associates  in 
the  Cabinet,  and  now  declared  that  the  Billeting  Act 
must  be  enforced,  and  that  no  relaxation  of  its  provisions 
should  be  made.  In  his  opinion,  the  Colonies  were  on  the 
verge  of  rebellion,  which  firmness  alone  could  check.  The 
noble  stand  of  the  Americans  in  support  of  their  just  rights 
as  Britons  and  men,  and  their  assertion  of  principles  upon 
which  were  based  the  freedom  of  the  whole  British  Em- 
pire, were  lost  on  this  school  of  statesman,  whose  deter- 
mination to  destroy  them  seemed  to  increase  with  the  gener- 
ous efforts  made  in  their  behalf. 

Having  matured  his  scheme,  Townshend  proposed  a  tax 
on  glass,  paper,  painters'  colors,  and  tea,  to  be  paid  as  impost 
duties.     Lord  Camden  objected  to  the  measure ;  but  after  a 


144  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

discussion  of  several  weeks'  duration,  it  finally  passed  both 
Houses,  and  being  approved  by  the  King,  on  the  29th  of 
June,  it  became  a  law.  Its  passage  was  assisted  by  Paxton, 
who  had  arrived  in  England,  and  by  the  representations 
of  Bernard  and  Hutchinson.  At  the  same  time,  acts  were 
passed  legalizing;  writs  of  assistance  and  establishing  a  board 
of  commissioners  of  customs  at  Boston.      These  measures 


convinced  the  patriots  that  their  liberties  were  to  be  wrested 
from  them,  and  the  press  grew  eloquent  with  the  effusions 
of  nervous  and  fearless  thinkers.  Already  the  employment 
of  ships  of  war  and  troops  was  advocated  to  insure  tranquil- 
lity, and  the  approach  of  military  rule  was  foreseen.  The 
Stamp  Act  was  in  reality  less  subversive  of  the  popxilar 
rights  than  these  new  revenue  acts.  Even  the  moneys 
accruing  from  them  were  to  be  beyond  the  control  of  the 
subjects  from  whom  they  were  raised,  but  were  at  the  King's 
disposal,  to  be  employed  in  the  support  of  the  very  officers 
who  were  appointed  to  collect  them.  The  ignominy  and 
perfect  servitude  involved  filled  the  Colonists  with  alarm, 
and  seemed  the  culmination  of  Ministerial  oppression. 

It  has  been  observed  by  contemporary  writers,  and  the 
assertion  is  generally  admitted,  that  Samuel  Adams  was 
the  first  man  in  America  who  openly  advocated  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Colonies.  The  rapid  succession  of  the  De- 
claratory and  Billeting  Acts,  and  the  passage,  after  mature 
deliberation,  of  these  arbitrary  measures  for  taxing  the  Col- 
onies, must  have  convinced  Adams  of  the  hopelessness,. of 
peaceful  efforts  for  redress.  He  saw  that  forcible  resistance 
would  inevitably  ensue,  and  that  the  only  question  was, 
when  events  would  call  for  decisive  action. 

Hutchinson  says  that,  as  early  as  1765,  Samuel  Adams 
owned  without  reserve,  in  private  discourse,  that  he  was  for 
the  independence  of  the  Colonies,  and  adds,  that  "  from  time 
to  time  he  made  advances  towards  it  in  public,  as  far  as 
would  serve  to  the  great  purpose  of  attaining  to  it."  But 
the  private  and  public  writings  of  Adams  up  to  this  time  do 


1767.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  145 

not  disclose  such  an  intention.  If  he  entertained  a  settled 
determination  towards  independence  as  early  as  the  year 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  he  concealed  it  for  prudential  reasons, 
deeming  it  premature  to  advance  it  until  tyranny  had 
wrought  the  people  to  the  proper  pitch  of  exasperation,  and 
the  Ministry  had  been  placed  sufficiently  in  the  wrong  be- 
fore the  world. 

But  independence  was  not  yet  his  policy.  That  Samuel 
Adams  had  for  many  years  foreseen  a  great  empire,  free  and 
independent,  and  under  his  favorite  democratic  form  of  gov- 
ernment, is  not  denied.  He  saw  that  such  a  structure  was 
possible  and  probable.  It  might  spring  from  the  genius  and 
peculiar  character  of  the  American  Colonies,  —  a  character 
he  had  studied,  and  knew  in  its  minutest  details.  That 
American  independence  would  be  hastened  by  the  unwise 
policy  of  the  British  government  we  must  believe  was  fixed 
in  his  mind  as  an  absolute  certainty ;  but  his  conversations 
on  independency,  to  which  Hutchinson  alludes,  had  this  bear- 
ing and  no  other,  that  while  it  was  certain  the  Colonies  must 
eventually  fall  from  the  parent  stem  and  become  a  great 
Western  power,  the  time  for  the  separation  had  not  yet  ar- 
rived, nor  was  the  popular  mind  ready  for  its  discussion. 

The  general  feeling  throughout  America,  up  to  the  year  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  was  one  of  deep  loyalty  to  the  King  and 
Parliament.  England  was  known,  even  among  those  who 
had  never  left  the  Provinces,  by  the  affectionate  name  of 
"  home."  Massachusetts  had  freely  exhausted  her  treasury 
and  spilt  her  blood  in  fighting  the  battles  of  Great  Britain  in 
America  for  the  conquest  of  territory,  which,  while  it  resulted 
in  no  benefit  to  the  Province,  enlarged  the  British  dominion. 
The  idea  of  a  separation,  if  it  was  ever  entertained,  was  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  greatest  evils  which  could  befall  the 
country.  Its  trade  would  be  ruined,  its  credit  destroyed, 
and  the  people  left  a  prey  to  the  power  of  France.  Vague 
terrors  attached  to  the  thought,  and  the  wealth  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  country  were  opposed  to  it.    Andrew  Eliot 

VOL.    I.  10 


146  •      LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

wrote :  "  The  Colonies  disunited  from  Great  Britain  must 
undergo  great  convulsions  before  they  would  be  settled  on  a 
firm  basis.  Colony  would  be  against  Colony,  and  there 
would  be  in  every  one  furious  internal  contests  for  power. 
....  I  hope  not  to  see  the  American  British  Colonies  dis- 
connected from  Great  Britain."  *  With  this  general  opinion 
in  the  country,  whatever  may  have  been  the  private  convic- 
tions of  Samuel  Adams,  to  have  asserted  in  any  public 
manner  at  this  time  the  doctrine  of  independence,  would 
not  only  have  lost  the  Colonies  some  of  their  warmest  ad- 
vocates in  England,  but  would  materially  have  retarded  the 
progress  of  liberty  by  alarming  those  whose  demands  for  re- 
dress went  no  further  than  for  a  restoration  of  the  Province 
to  its  position  at  the  close  of  the  French  war.  Such  indeed 
were  the  views  of  many  eminent  patriots  as  late  as  1776. 
Hence  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  private  letters  to  England  as  well 
as  his  public  papers,  takes  frequent  occasion  to  refute  the 
charge  that  the  Assembly  aimed  at  independence. 

To  a  correspondent  in  London,  in  November,  1765,  he  as- 
serts the  loyalty  of  the  Colonists  and  their  affection  for  the 
mother  country,  and  adds :  "  There  is  at  present  no  appear- 
ance of  such  a  disposition  as  this  writer  would  insinuate, 
much  less  a  struggle  for  independence  ;  and  I  dare  say  there 
never  will  be,  unless  Great  Britain  shall  exert  her  power  to 
destroy  their  liberties."  It  is  observable,  however,  that  the 
tenor  of  this  extract  makes  the  effort  for  independence  con- 
tingent upon  the  course  of  England  towards  the  Colonies. 

One  of  his  letters  to  Deberdt,  written  in  December,  1765, 


"  We  find  that  attempts  have  been  made  to  raise  a  jealousy  in  the 
nation,  that  the  Colonists  are  struggling  for  independence,  than  which 
nothing  can  be  more  injurious.  It  is  neither  their  interest,  nor  have 
they  ever  shown  the  least  disposition  to  be  independent  of  Great 
Britain.     They  have  always  prided  themselves  on  being  British  sub- 

*  To  Thomas  Hollis,  Dec.  10,  1767. 


1767.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.     •  147 

jects,  and  have  with  the  greatest  cheerfulness  done  everything  in 
their  power  to  promote  the  common  cause  of  the  nation.  And  we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  the  Colonists  will  ever  remain  firmly  at- 
tached to  the  mother  country." 

To  an  absent  friend,  whose  name  cannot  be  ascertained, 
he  wrote,  abont  the  same  time  :  — 

"  I  should  have  taken  the  liberty  of  writing  to  you  by  vessels 
which  have  already  sailed,  had  I  known  it  was  your  intention  to 
spend  the  winter  in  England.  Your  acquaintance  with  this  country, 
its  civil  constitution,  its  religious  establishment,  the  temper,  educa- 
tion, manners,  and  customs  of  the  people,  their  attachment  to,  as  well 
as  connections  with,  the  mother  country,  their  trade  and  the  advan- 
tages of  it  to  Great  Britain,  their  ardent  love  of  liberty,  civil  and 
religious,  make  you  an  able  advocate  in  her  behalf,  when  her  friends 
have  everything  to  fear  for  her.  Perhaps  there  never  was  a  time 
when  she  stood  more  in  need  of  friends  in  England,  and  had  less 
reason  to  expect  them ;  not  because  she  has  justly  forfeited  them, 
but  from  the  nature  of  the  unhappy  controversy  which  has  of  late 
arisen  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies,  while  the  prosperity 
of  both  depends  upon  mutual  affection  and  harmony." 

This  prudence  and  insight  into  the  bearings  of  the  great 
cause  he  espoused  was  a  perpetual  check  upon  the  suggestion 
of  Colonial  independence.  The  propagation  of  such  senti- 
ments at  that  time  would  have  been  deeply  injurious  to 
American  liberty.  In  all  his  state  papers,  therefore,  up  to 
the  time  of  the  Congress,  when  what  he  had  long  foreseen  be- 
came patent  to  the  country  at  large,  that  petitions  were  but 
a  waste  of  words,  and  that  the  "  ultima  ratio  "  could  alone 
decide  the  question,  it  will  be  found  that  the  idea  of  inde- 
pendence, which  had  frequently  been  charged  upon  the  pop- 
ular leaders,  is  repeatedly  and  explicitly  denied  as  the  opin- 
ion of  the  Assembly. 

Judge  Sullivan  in  his  biographical  sketch  of  Samuel 
Adams,  written  a  few  days  after  the  death  of  the  latter  in 
1803,  having  quoted  some  of  the  confidential  friends  of  the 
deceased  in  proof  of  his  having  been  the  first  man  in  Amer- 


148  #      LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

ica  who  contemplated  a  separation  of  the  Colonies  from  Eng- 
land, adds  that  his  enemies  charged  him  with  hypocrisy  in 
concealing  his  views  in  the  dawning  of  the  Revolution. 
"  But  in  this,"  continues  the  writer,  "  he  was  justifiable ;  for, 
unless  he  could  believe  that  the  whole  body  of  the  people 
could  discern  and  trace  political  effects  from  their  deep 
causes,  it  would  have  been  folly  in  him  to  have  exposed  his 
views.  He  lived  in  a  world  where  one  man  had  been  burned 
for  asserting  the  motion  of  the  planets,  which  is  now  known 
to  every  one,  and  where  the  originators  of  new  theories  have 
suffered  disgrace  for  exposing  systems  which  after  ages  have 
respected  and  honored. " 

When  the  news  of  the  revenue  bill  arrived  in  Boston, 
it  was  met  with  a  determined  spirit  of  opposition.  "  The 
die  is  cast,"  "  the  Rubicon  is  passed,"  cried  some.  "  We 
will  form  an  immediate  and  universal  combination  to  eat 
nothing,  drink  nothing,  wear  nothing,  imported  from  Great 
Britain."  "  Our  strength  consists  in  union.  Let  us,  above 
all,  be  of  one  heart  and  of  one  mind.  Let  us  call  on  our 
sister  Colonies  to  join  with  us  in  asserting  our  rights.  If 
our  opposition  to  slavery  is  called  rebellion,  let  us  pursue 
duty  with  firmness,  and  leave  the  event  to  Heaven."  Oth- 
ers, among  them  young  Quincy,  rashly  advocated  armed  re- 
sistance. Josiah  Quincy,  who  was  one  of  the  political  pupils 
of  Samuel  Adams,  was  then  twenty-three  years  of  age.  His 
talents  had  already  attracted  attention,  and  gave  promise  of 
great  future  usefulness  to  his  country.  "  Should  we  be  told 
to  perceive  our  inability  to  oppose  the  mother  country,"  he 
wrote  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  "we  boldly  answer  that  in 
defence  of  our  civil  and  religious  rights,  with  the  God  of 
armies  on  our  side,  we  fear  not  the  hour  of  trial ;  though 
the  host  of  our  enemies  should  cover  -the  field  like  locusts, 
yet  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon  shall  prevail."  * 

The  Revolution  had  commenced.     Hutchinson  dated  its 
beginning  from  the  previous  year ;  but  now  the  tone  of  the 

*  "Hyperion  "  (Josiah  Quincy)  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  5,  1767. 


1767.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.       ■  149 

press  and  the  public  sentiment  showed  that  the  faith  in  the 
integrity  of  Parliament  was  undermined,  and  that  resistance 
was  believed  to  be  right  and  possible.  The  project  of  non- 
importation and  non-consumption  of  English  manufactures 
had,  from  the  commencement  of  the  disputes,  been  a  favorite 
idea  with  Mr.  Adams.  He  frequently  reminded  his  corre- 
spondents in  London  of  the  alternative  to  which  the  taxation 
schemes  of  Parliament  must  drive  the  Colonists.  In  1764  he 
hinted  that  if  the  trade  of  the  Americans  was  to  be  taxed,, 
they  would  be  less  able  to  consume  the  manufactures  of 
Great  Britain.  In  a  letter  to  Deberdt,  in  November,  1765, 
he  refers  to  stopping  the  importation  of  British  goods,  which 
the  Colonies  were  more  and  more  determined  to  forego. 
Again  in  December,  1765,  in  a  letter  sent  to  a  friend  in  Eng- 
land, he  says  that  "  an  attempt  to  raise  a  revenue  out  of  the 
trade  of  the  people  will  reduce  them  to  the  necessity  of  set- 
ting up  manufactures  of  their  own."  *  —  "  To  him,"  says  a 
writer,  who  thoroughly  knew  his  whole  political  life,  "  is  also 
attributed  the  design  of  the  non-importation  system,  which 
he  persuaded  nearly  all  the  merchants  in  the  Colony  to  adopt 
and  adhere  to."  Every  indication  points  to  Samuel  Adams 
as  the  author  of  this  important  means  of  resistance.  Town 
meetings  were  now  held  to  encourage  the  produce  and 
manufactures  of  the  Province,  and  to  lessen  the  use  of  su- 
perfluities, of  which  long  lists  were  enumerated.  Commit- 
tees were  appointed  to  obtain  subscriptions  to  these  agree- 
ments, which  interdicted  the  use  or  purchase  of  the  articles 
named.  A  clause,  introduced  at  the  meeting  of  October 
28th,  reads :  — 

"  And  we  further  agree  strictly  to  adhere  to  the  late  regulations 
respecting  funerals,  and  will  not  use  any  gloves  but  what  are  manu- 
factured here,  nor  procure  any  new  garments  upon  such  an  occasion 
but  what  shall  be  absolutely  necessary."  f 

*  For  proof  that  the  American  non-importation  schemes  commenced  in 
Boston,  see  Samuel  Adams  to  Dennys  Deberdt,  May  14,  1768. 

t  Massachusetts  Gazette  for  Nov.  5,  1767.     See  Grahame,  II.  429,  430. 


/ 


150  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Oct.,  1767. 


At  one  of  the  meetings,  Otis  advised  against  opposition  to 
the  new  duties,  and  recommended  caution.  "  The  King  has 
the  right,"  he  continued,  "  to  appoint  officers  of  the  customs 
in  what  manner  he  pleases,  and  by  what  denominations  ; 
and  to  resist  his  authority  will  but  provoke  his  displeasure."' 

The  non-consumption  agreements  were  not  to  go  into  force 
until  the  close  of  the  year,  and  meantime  an  unusual  quiet 
prevailed.  The  leaven,  however,  was  working.  The  agree- 
ments were  to  be  sent  to  all  the  towns  in  the  Province  and 
also  to  the  other  Colonies.  Bernard  reported  that  the  fac- 
tion "  dared  not  show  its  face,"  and  that  "  the  Province 
would  recover  its  former  reputation  "  for  loyalty.  Hutch- 
inson wrote,  "  our  incendiaries  seem  discouraged,"  and  he 
circulated  the  statement  that  the  people  of  Boston  would  be 
left  alone,  as  the  New-Yorkers  were  all  for  peace.* 

The  Legislature  was  not  to  meet  until  January.  The  pe- 
tition of  the  town,  prepared  by  a  committee  of  which  Adams, 
Otis,  and  Cushing  were  members,  desiring  the  Governor 
to  convene  the  General  Assembly,  had  been  rejected  with 
contempt.  Still  the  Province  remained  tranquil ;  and  even 
the  anniversary  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  passed  away 
in  quiet,  the  usual  ceremonies  being  conducted  with  strict 
propriety,  —  the  few  placards  and  effigies  exhibited  having 
been  removed  by  the  friends  of  the  people. 

The  new  Ministry  entered  upon  their  duties,  determined  to 
maintain  the  authority  of  Parliament  on  the  basis  of  the  late 

*  These  agreements,  as  will  hereafter  be  seen,  were  not  faithfully  kept  in  sev- 
eral of  the  Colonies,  much  to  the  regret  of  Mr.  Adams,  who  spared  no  pains  to 
maintain  a  general  observance.  Even  in  Boston  they  were  broken,  but  were 
renewed  at  intervals  throughout  America,  until  Congress,  in  1774,  adopted  a 
non-importation  act  embracing  the  whole  continent.  In  October,  1769,  leading 
merchants  in  several  Colonies  signed  such  an  agreement,  and  Hutchinson  wrote 
to  Bernard :  "  The  Land  Bank  movement  in  this  Province,  in  1 740,  was  a  pecca- 
dillo compared  with  the  combinations  now  afloat  in  so  many  Colonies.  ■  That 
was  thought  to  deserve  an  act  of  Parliament,  and  all  who  continued  in  it  were 
subjected  to  the  penalties  of  the  statute  of  premunire.  These,  therefore,  which 
are  absolutely  incompatible  with  a  state  of  government,  can  never  be  over- 
looked." 


Jan.,  1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  151 

Charles  Townshend's  tax  bills.  Artful  misrepresentations 
by  Bernard,  Hutchinson,  and  the  crown  officers,  especially 
Paxton,  who,  with  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs,  arrived 
in  November  to  commence  the  odious  system,  had  increased 
the  anger  of  the  Colonial  Department,  which  was  still  more 
inflamed  by  non-consumption  meetings  in  Boston  ;  and  the 
abrogation  of  the  Colonial  charters  was  agitated  as  a  means 
of  reducing  the  Americans  to  obedience,  under  a  uniform 
system  of  government.  Lord  Hillsborough,  now  appointed 
Colonial  Secretary,  though  professing  a  regard  for  the  liber- 
ties of  America,  was  but  an  enemy  in  disguise ;  and  Lord 
North,  who  had  been  summoned  to  fill  Townshend's  place, 
was  steeled  against  concessions  to  the  Colonists.  The  new 
year  opened  with  gloomy  prospects ;  but  great  events  were 
to  happen  in  its  first  month,  —  events  which  more  directly 
led  to  the  Revolution  than  any  that  had  preceded  them. 
Hillsborough's  first  act  relating  to  Massachusetts  was  to 
grant  a  pension  of  two  hundred  pounds  to  Hutchinson,  to 
be  paid  annually  by  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs,  — 
collected  of  course  from  the  industry  of  the  people.  This 
act  was  regarded  with  special  abhorrence.  The  indepen- 
dence of  the  bench  was  gone  if  it  received  money  of  the 
King.  "  We  shall  be  obliged,"  said  Andrew  Eliot,  "  to 
maintain  in  luxury  sycophants,  court  parasites,  and  hungry 
dependents,  who  will  be  sent  over  to  watch  and  oppress  those 
who  support  them.,,  * 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  the  wisdom  and  genius  of  Samuel 
Adams  shone  forth,  evoked  by  the  perilous  necessities  of  his 
countrymen.  Bancroft,  who  has  long  and  carefully  studied 
the  character  of  Adams,  gradually  developing  its  great 
points  as  he  advances  in  his  History,  thus  glances  at  the 
three  leaders  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  in  17j 

"  Such  were  the  sentiments  of  the  more  moderate  among  the 
patriots.    Still  the  attempt  at  concerting  an  agreement  not  to  import 

*  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Dec.  15,  1769. 


/ 


152  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

had  thus  far  failed;  and  unless  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts 
should  devise  methods  of  resistance,  the  oppressive  law  would  grad- 
ually go  into  effect.  The  hot  spirits  in  that  body  were  ready  to 
break  out  into  a  flame ;  there  were  men  among  them  who  would 
not  count  the  consequences.  Of  the  country  members,  Hawley, 
than  whom  no  one  was  abler  or  more  sincere,  lived  far  in  the  inte- 
rior ;  and  his  excitable  nature,  now  vehement,  now  desponding,  un- 
fitted him  to  guide.  The  irritability  of  Otis  had  so  increased  that  he 
rather  indulged  himself  in  '  rhapsodies '  and  volcanic  *  flashes '  of 
eloquence,  than  framed  deliberate  plans  of  conduct.  Besides,  his 
mind  had  early  embraced  the  idea  of  '  a  general  union  of  the  British 
empire,  in  which  every  part  of  its  wide  dominions  should  be  repre- 
sented under  one  equal  and  uniform  direction  and  system  of  laws  ; ' 
and  though  the  Congress  of  New  York  drew  from  him  a  tardy  con- 
cession that  an  American  representation  was  impossible,  yet  his 
heart  still  turned  to  his  original  opinion,  and  in  his  prevailing  mood 
he  shrunk  from  the  thought  of  independence.  The  ruling  passion 
of  Samuel  Adams,  on  the  contrary,  was  the  preservation  of  the  dis- 
tinctive character  and  institutions  of  New  England.  He  thor- 
oughly understood  the  tendency  of  the  measures  adopted  by  Parlia- 
ment; approved  of  making  the  appeal  to  Heaven,  since  freedom 
could  not  otherwise  be  preserved;  and  valued  the  liberties  of  his 
country  more  than  its  temporal  prosperity,  more  than  his  own  life, 
more  than  the  lives  of  all.  The  confidence  of  his  townsmen  sus- 
tained his  fortitude;  his  whole  nature  was  absorbed  by  care  for 
the  public ;  and  his  strictly  logical  mind  was  led  to  choose  for  the 
defence  of  the  separate  liberties  of  America  a  position  which 
offered  no  weak  point  for  attack.  His  theory,  on  which  the  Colo- 
nies were  to  repose  until  the  dawn  of  better  days,  as  a  small  but 
gallant  army  waits  for  aid  within  its  lines,  he  embodied  in  the  form 
of  a  letter  from  the  Assembly  of  the  Province  to  their  agent."  * 

The  draft  of  this  celebrated  letter  was  submitted  by  Mr. 
Adams  on  Wednesday,  the  6th  of  January,  soon  after  the 
meeting  of  the  Legislature,  through  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  the  state  of  the  Province,  which  had  been 
appointed  in  June  of  the  previous  year.     It  has  been  called 

*  Bancroft's  History,  VI.  117-120. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  153 

the  most  remarkable  paper  which  had  yet  appeared  in 
America  on  Colonial  affairs.  Its  principles  were  such  that 
the  House  long  hesitated  to  adopt  it,  and  had  the  original 
draft  under  consideration  for  seven  days,  while  it  was  de- 
bated and  revised  seven  times  and  every  sentence  and  word 
carefully  weighed.  Though  directed  to  the  agent,  it  was 
evidently  for  the  Ministry,  who  could  only  be  approached 
through  Deberdt ;  and  opinions  which  were  unchangeable 
and  to  be  published  to  the  world  might  well  be  rigidly 
considered  before  they  were  sent  forth  in  the  journals  as 
the  "true  sentiments  of  America,' '  as  Mr.  Adams  after- 
wards called  them.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  13th,  after  the 
letter  had  been  finally  debated  and  revised,  the  question  was 
put  whether  it  should  be  accepted,  and  passed  in  the  affirm- 
ative.* 

The  letter  is  too  voluminous  to  admit  of  more  than  occa- 
sional extracts.!  It  commences  by  a  reference  to  the  rev- 
enue acts,  which  had  arrived  since  the  last  sitting  of  the 
General  Court.  The  equality  of  constitutional  rights  in  all 
parts  of  his  Majesty's  dominions  is  asserted,  and  the  idea  of 
independence  is  fully  disclaimed  as  the  wish  of  the  Colonists. 

"  They  are  far  from  being  insensible  of  their  happiness  in  being 
connected  with  the  mother  country,  and  of  the  mutual  benefit  de- 
rived from  it  to  both.  It  is  therefore  the  indispensable  duty  of  all 
to  cultivate  and  establish  a  mutual  harmony,  and  to  promote  the  in- 
tercourse of  good  offices  between  them;  and  while  both  have  the 
free  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  our  happy  Constitution,  there  will  be 
no  grounds  of  envy  and  discontent  in  the  one,  nor  of  jealousy  and 
mistrust  in  the  other. 

"  It  is  the  glory  of  the  British  Constitution  that  it  hath  its  founda- 
tion in  the  law  of  God  and  nature.  It  is  an  essential  natural  right 
that  a  man  shall  quietly  enjoy  and  have  the  sole  disposal  of  his  own 
property.     This  right  is  adopted  into  the  Constitution.     This  natu- 

*  On  Samuel  Adams's  authorship  of  the  letter  to  Deberdt,  see  Bancroft,  VI. 
119;  Barry's  Massachusetts,  II.  342;  and  the  note  on  p.  172  of  the  present 
work. 

t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  124. 


c 


154  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

ral  and  constitutional  right  is  so  familiar  to  the  American  subjects, 
that  it  would  be  difficult,  if  possible,  to  convince  them  that  any  ne- 
cessity can  render  it  just,  equitable,  and  reasonable,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  that  the  Parliament  should  impose  duties,  subsidies,  talliages, 
and  taxes  upon  them,  internal  or  external,  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
raising  a  revenue.  The  reason  is  obvious ;  because  they  cannot  be 
represented,  and  therefore  their  consent  cannot  be  constitutionally 

had  in  Parliament.  i 

•  .  *  •  . 

"  It  is  observable  that,  though  many  have  disregarded  life  and 
contemned  liberty,  yet  there  are  few  men  who  do  not  agree  that 
property  is  a  valuable  acquisition,  which  ought  to  be  held  sacred. 
Many  have  fought  and  bled  and  died  for  this,  who  have  been  insen- 
sible to  all  other  obligations.  Those  who  ridicule  the  ideas  of  right 
and  justice,  faith  and  truth,  among  men,  will  put  a  high  value  upoa  fl 
money.  Property  is  admitted  to  have  an  existence  even  in  the  savr  £  1/  , 
age  state  of  nature.  The  bow,  the  arrow,  and  the  tomahawk,  the 
hunting  and  fishing  ground,  are  species  of  property  as  important  to 
an  American  savage  as  pearls,  rubies,  and  diamonds  are  to  the  Mo*-jQ/y  / 
gul,  or  a  nabob  in  the  East,  or  the  lands,  tenements,  hereditaments) 
messuages,  gold,  and  silver  of  the  Europeans.  And  if  property  is 
necessary  for  the  support  of  savage  life,  it  is  by  no  means  less  so  in 
civil  society.  The  Utopian  schemes  of  levelling,  and  a  community 
of  goods,  are  as  visionary  and  impracticable  as  those  which  vest  all 
property  in  the  Crown  are  arbitrary,  despotic,  and,  in  our  govern- 
ment, unconstitutional. 

"  The  security  of  right  and  property  is  the  great  end  of  government. 
Surely,  then,  such  measures  as  tend  to  render  right  and  property  ^  JF 
precarious  tend  to  destroy  both  property  and  government! Tor  ^ 
these  must  stand  and  fall  together.  It  would  be  difficult,  if  possible, 
to  show  that  the  present  plan  of  taxing  the  Colonies  is  more  favpr- 
able  to  them  than  that  put  in  use  here  before  the  Revolution.  It 
seems  by  the  event,  that  our  ancestors  were  in  one  respect  not  in 
so  melancholy  a  situation  as  we,  their  posterity,  are.  In  those  times, 
the  Crown  and  the  ministers  of  the  Crown,  without  the  intervention 
of  Parliament,  demolished  charters  and  levied  taxes  on  the  Colonies 
at  pleasure.     Governor  Andros,  in  the  time  of  James  II.,  declared 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  155 

that  wherever  an  Englishman  sets  his  foot,  all  he  hath  is  the  King's ; 
and  Dudley  declared  at  the  Council  Board,  and  even  on  the  sacred  seat 
of  justice,  that  the  privilege  of  Englishmen  not  to  be  taxed  without 
their  consent  and  the  laws  of  England,  would  not  follow  them  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth.*  It  was  also  in  those  days  declared  in  Coun- 
cil, that  the  King's  subjects  in  New  England  did  not  differ  much 
from  slaves ;  and  that  the  only  difference  was,  that  they  were  not 
bought  and  sold.  But  there  was,  even  in  those  times,  an  excellent 
Attorney- General,  Sir  William  Jones,  who  was  of  another  mind; 
and  told  King  James  that  he  could  no  more  grant  a  commission  to 
levy  money  on  his  subjects  in  Jamaica,  though  a  conquered  island, 
without  their  consent  by  an  Assembly,  than  they  could  discharge 
themselves  from  their  allegiance  to  the  English  Crown.  But  the 
misfortune  of  the  Colonists  at  present  is,  that  they  are  taxed  by  Par- 
liament without  their  consent.  This,  while  the  Parliament  contin- 
ues to  tax  us,  will  ever  render  our  case  in  one  respect  more 
deplorable  and  remediless  under  the  best  of  kings  than  that  of  our 
ancestors  was  under  the  worst.  They  found  relief  by  the  interposi- 
tion of  Parliament.  But  by  the  intervention  of  that  very  power 
we  are  taxed,  and  can  appeal  for  relief  from  their  final  decision  to 
no  power  on  earth ;  for  there  is  no  power  on  earth  above  them." 

The  argument  then  considers  taxation  as  a  question  of 
law  and  equity.  The  great  value  of  the  American  trade  is 
explained,  and  the  military  efforts  of  the  Colonies  for  their 
own  protection  and  the  enlarging  of  the  British  dominion 
fully  illustrated. 

"  This  House  apprehends  that  it  would  be  grievous  and  of  dan- 
gerous tendency  if  the  Crown  should  not  only  appoint  governors 
over  the  several  Colonies,  but  allow  them  such  stipends  as  it  shall 
judge  proper  at  the  expense  of  the  people  and  without  their  consent. 
Such  a  power  under  a  corrupt  administration,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
would  introduce  an  absolute  government  in  America;  at  best,  it 
would  leave  the  people  in  a  state  of  utter  uncertainty  of  their  secu- 
rity, which  is  far  from  being  a  state  of  civil  liberty.     The  judges 

*  In  a  letter  to  an  unknown  person  in  London,  Dec.  20, 1765  (see  p.  102), 
Mr.  Adams  quotes  this  remark  of  Governor  Dudley,  whom  he  calls  a 
•  haughty  Bashaw." 


156  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

in  the  several  Colonies  do  not  hold  their  commissions  during  good 
behavior.  If  then  they  are  to  have  salaries  independent  of  the 
people,  how  easy  will  it  be  for  a  corrupt  governor  to  have  a  set  of 
judges  to  his  mind,  to  deprive  a  bench  of  justice  of  its  glory,  and  the 
people  of  their  security.  If  the  judges  of  England  have  independ- 
ent livings,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  tenure  of  their  commis- 
sions is  during  good  behavior,  which  is  a  safeguard  to  the  people." 

i  Of  the  grievance  of  a  standing  army  in  the  Colonies, 
which  is  regarded  as  a  needless  expense,  Mr.  Adams  con- 
tinues :  — 

"  Or  if  it  be  admitted  that  there  may  be  some  necessity  for  them 
in  the  conquered  province  of  Canada,  where  the  exercise  of  the  Rom- 
ish religion,  so  destructive  to  civil  society,  is  allowed,  surely  there 
can  be  no  need  of  them  in  the  bowels  of  the  old  Colonies,  and  even 
in  cities  where  there  is  not  the  least  danger  of  a  foreign  enemy  and 
where  the  inhabitants  are  as  strongly  attached  to  his  Majesty's  per- 
son, family,  and  government,  as  in  Great  Britain  itself.  There  is 
an  English  affection  in  the  Colonies  towards  the  mother  country, 
which  will  forever  keep  them  connected  with  her,  to  every  valuable 
purpose,  unless  it  shall  be  erased  by  repeated  unkind  usage  on  her 
part.  As  Englishmen,  as  well  as  British  subjects,  they  have  an 
aversion  to  an  unnecessary  standing  army,  which  they  look  upon  as 
dangerous  to  their  civil  liberties ;  and  considering  the  examples  of 
ancient  times,  it  seems  a  little  surprising  that  a  mother  state  should 
trust  large  bodies  of  mercenary  troops  in  her  colonies,  at  so  great  a 
distance  from  her,  lest  in  process  of  time,  when  the  spirits  of  the 
people  shall  be  depressed  by  the  military  power,  another  Czesar 
should  arise  and  usurp  the  authority  of  his  master. 

u  The  act  enabling  his  Majesty  to  appoint  Commissioners  of  the 

Customs  to  reside  in  America  has  also  been  read  in  the  House 

These  gentlemen  are  authorized  to  appoint  as  many  as  they  shall 
think  proper,  without  limitation.  This  will  probably  be  attended 
with  undesirable  effects.  A  host  of  pensioners,  by  the  arts  they 
may  use,  may  in  time  become  as  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  the 
people  as  an  army  of  soldiers ;  for  there  is  a  way  of  subduing  a 
people  by  art  as  well  as  by  arms.  We  are  happy  and  safe  under 
his  present  Majesty's  mild  and  gracious  administration  ;  but  the 
time  may  come  when  the  united  body  of  pensioners  and  soldiers 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  157 

may  ruin  the  liberties  of  America.  The  trade  of  the  Colonies,  we 
apprehend,  may  be  as  easily  carried  on  and  the  acts  of  trade  as  duly 
enforced  without  this  commission ;  and,  if  so,  it  must  be  a  very  need- 
less expense,  at  a  time  when  the  nation  and  her  Colonies  are  groan- 
ing under  debts  contracted  in  the  late  war,  and  how  far  distant  an- 
other may  be  God  only  knows. 

The  suspension  of  the  legislative  authority  of  the  Assem- 
bly of  New  York  is  taken  up  and  treated  as  "  alarming  to  all 
the  Colonies.  A  legislative  body,  without  the  free  exercise 
of  the  powers  of  legislation,  is  to  us  incomprehensible. 
There  can  be  no  material  difference  between  such  a  Legis- 
lature and  none  at  all." 

"  What  is  the  plain  language  of  such  a  suspension  ?  We  can  dis- 
cover no  more  nor  less  in  it  than  this :  if  the  American  Assemblies 
refuse  to  grant  as  much  of  their  own  and  their  constituents'  money 
as  shall,  from  time  to  time,  be  enjoined  and  prescribed  by  the  Par- 
liament, besides  what  the  Parliament  directly  taxes  them,  they  shall 
no  longer  have  any  legislative  authority ;  but  if  they  comply  with 
what  is  prescribed,  they  may  still  be  allowed  to  legislate,  under  their 
charter  restrictions.  Does  not  political  death  and  annihilation  stare 
us  in  the  face  as  strongly  on  the  one  supposition  as  the  other  ? 
equally  in  case  of  compliance  as  of  non-compliance  ? 

"  The  establishment  of  a  Protestant  episcopate  in  America  is  also 
very  zealously  contended  for;  and  it  is  very  alarming  to  a  peo- 
ple whose  fathers,  from  the  hardships  they  suffered  under  such  an 
establishment,  were  obliged  to  fly  their  native  country  into  a  wilder- 
ness, in  order  peaceably  to  enjoy  their  privileges,  civil  and  relig- 
ious. Their  being  threatened  with  the  loss  of  both  at  once  must 
throw  them  into  a  very  disagreeable  situation.  We  hope  in  God 
such  an  establishment  will  never  take  place  in  America,  and  we  de- 
sire you  would  strenuously  oppose  it.  The  revenue  raised  in  Amer- 
ica, for  aught  we  can  tell,  may  be  as  constitutionally  applied  towards 
the  support  of  prelacy  as  of  soldiers  and  pensioners.  If  the  property 
of  the  subject  is  taken  from  him  without  his  consent,  it  is  immate- 
rial whether  it  is  done  by  one  man  or  five  hundred ;  or  whether  it 


158  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [jan. 

be  applied  for  the  support  of  ecclesiastic  or  military  power,  or  both. 
It  may  be  well  worth  the  consideration  of  the  best  politician  in 
Great  Britain  or  America,  what  the  natural  tendency  is  of  a  vigor- 
ous pursuit  of  these  measures.  We  are  not  insensible  that  some 
eminent  men,  on  both  sides  the  water,  are  less  friendly  to  American 
charters  and  Assemblies  than  could  be  wished.  It  seems  to  be  grow- 
ing fashionable  to  treat  them,  in  common  conversation  as  well  as  in 
popular  publications,  with  contempt.  But  if  we  look  back  a  few 
reigns,  we  shall  find  that  even  the  august  assembly,  the  Parliament, 
was  in  every  respect  the  object  of  a  courtier's  reproach.  It  was 
even  an  aphorism  with  King  James  I.,  that  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons were  two  very  bad  copartners  with  a  monarch ;  and  he 
and  his  successors  broke  the  copartnership  as  fast  as  possible.  It 
is  certainly  unnatural  for  a  British  politician  to  expect  that  even  the 
supreme  executive  of  the  nation  can  long  exist,  after  the  supreme 
legislative  shall  be  depressed  and  destroyed,  which  may  God  forbid." 

The  paper  closes  with  a  terse  and  unanswerable  argument 
against  the  dissolution  or  annihilation  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can Assemblies,  and  the  agent  is  desired  to  make  known  to 
bis  Majesty's  ministers  the  sentiment  of  the  House,  and  im- 
plore a  favorable  consideration  of  America. 

From  the  adoption  of  this  letter  to  the  middle  of  Febru- 
ary, the  House  were  engaged  in  the  consideration  of  ad- 
dresses to  the  Ministry,  including  Shelburne,  Chatham, 
Rockingham,  Conway,  Camden,  and  the  Lords  of  the  Treas- 
ury, a  petition  to  the  King,  and  a  circular  letter  to  be  sent 
to  each  House  of  Representatives  or  Burgesses  on  the  con- 
tinent. These  were  all  from  the  pen  of  Samuel  Adams, 
are  models  of  simplicity  and  elegance  of  style,  and,  together 
with  the  letter  to  the  agent,  attracted  more  attention  than 
any  other  state  papers  of  the  time.  They  contain  similar 
sentiments  with  the  letter,  and  speak  the  unalterable  mind 
of  Massachusetts  on  the  rights  of  America. 

To  the  Earl  of  Shelburne,*  after  reciting  the  hardships  of 
the  early  settlers  of  the  Colonies,  and  their  allegiance  to  the 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  137. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  159 

Crown,  the  House  claim  all  the  rights  of  the  British  Consti- 
tution, on  the  ground  that  no  part  of  the  subjects  of  the  same 
prince  can  be  justly  deprived  of  the  full  enjoyment  of  the 
rights  of  that  Constitution,  upon  which  the  government 
itself  is  formed,  and  by  which  sovereignty  and  allegiance 
are  ascertained  and  limited. 

"There  are,  my  Lord,  fundamental  rules  of  the  Constitution, 
which,  it  is  humbly  presumed,  neither  the  supreme  legislative  nor 
the  supreme  executive  can  alter.  In  all  free  states  the  constitution 
is  fixed ;  it  is  from  thence  that  the  legislative  derives  its  authority ; 
therefore  it  cannot  change  the  constitution  without  destroying  its 
own  foundation.  If,  then,  the  Constitution  of  Great  Britain  is  the 
common  right  of  all  British  subjects,  it  is  humbly  referred  to  your 
Lordship's  judgment,  whether  the  supreme  legislative  of  the  empire 
may  rightly  leap  the  bounds  of  it,  in  the  exercise  of  power  over  the 
subjects  in  America,  any  more  than  over  those  in  Britain.,, 

The  Right  Honorable  Henry  Seymour  Conway  was  borne 
gratefully  in  mind  by  the  House,  "  for  the  signal  and  success- 
ful exertions  "  he  had  made  for  the  Colonists  when  their  lib- 
erties were  in  danger.  His  known  attachment  to  the  rights 
of  the  subjects  in  their  just  extent  induced  the  Assembly  to 
implore  his  aid.*  In  an  eloquent  appeal,  Mr.  Adams  as- 
serts :  — 

"It  is  the  glory  of  the  British  Prince,  and  the  happiness  of  all  his 
subjects,  that  their  Constitution  hath  its  foundation  in  the  immutable 
laws  of  nature ;  and  as  the  supreme  legislative  as  well  as  the  su- 
preme executive  derives  its  authority  from  that  Constitution,  it  should 
seem  that  no  laws  can  be  made  or  executed  that  are  repugnant  to 
any  essential  law  in  nature.  Hence  a  British  subject  is  happily 
distinguished  from  the  subjects  of  many  other  states,  in  a  just  and 
well-grounded  opinion  of  his  own  safety,  which  is  the  perfection  of 
political  liberty." 

The  Marquis  of  Rockingham  had  expressed  his  friendship 
for  the  liberties  of  the  Province  in  a  letter  to  the  House, 

*  Journals  of  the  House  for  1768.     "  The  True  Sentiments  of  America." 


160  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Jan. 


communicated  through  the  Speaker,  promising  not  to  adopt 
a  system  of  arbitrary  rule.  The  Assembly  gratefully  ac- 
knowledged his  goodness  *  reiterating  their  allegiance  to  the 
Crown,  but  apprehending  the  arbitrary  rule  of  the  supreme 
power  of  the  nation  in  its  unjust  system  of  taxation. 

"  My  Lord,  the  superintending  power  of  that  high  court  over  all 
his  Majesty's  subjects  in  the  empire,  and  in  all  cases  which  can 
consist  with  the  fundamental  rules  of  the  Constitution,  was  never 
questioned  in  this  Province,  nor,  as  the  House  conceive,  in  any  other. 
But,  in  all  free  states,  the  constitution  is  fixed ;  it  is  from  thence  that 
the  supreme  legislative  as  well  as  the  supreme  executive  derives 
its  authority.  Neither,  then,  can  break  through  the  fundamental 
rules  of  the  constitution,  without  destroying  their  own  foundation. 

The  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  Great  Britain,  Lord  Camden, 
had  been  a  sterling  friend  of  the  Colonies  during  the  Stamp 
Act  agitation.  The  House,  addressing  him,  appeal  to  his 
influence  in  their  behalf,  feeling  assured  that  he  still  had 
their  cause  at  heart. 

"This  House  can  speak  only  for  the  people  of  one  Province. 
But  no  Assembly  on  this  continent,  it  is  presumed,  can  long  be  silent 
under  an  apprehension  that,  without  the  aid  of  some  powerful  advo- 
cate, the  liberties  of  America  will  soon  be  no  more. 

"  If  it  is  an  essential,  unalterable  right  in  nature,  ingrafted  into  the 
British  Constitution  as  a  fundamental  law,  and  ever  held  sacred  and 
irrevocable  by  the  subjects  within  the  realm,  that  what  is  a  man's 
own  is  absolutely  his  own,  and  that  no  man  hath  a  right  to  take  it 
from  him  without  his  consent,  may  not  the  subjects  of  this  Province, 
with  a  decent  firmness  which  has  always  distinguished  the  happy 
subjects  of  Britain,  plead  and  maintain  this  natural  constitutional 
right  ? 

•  •  •  •  • 

"  The  position  that  taxation  and  representation  are  inseparable 
is  founded  on  the  immutable  laws  of  nature.  But  the  Americans 
had  no  representation  in  Parliament  when  they  were  taxed.    Are 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  142. 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  161 

they  not  then  unfortunate  in  these  instances,  in  having  that  separated 
which  God  and  nature  had  joined  ?  Such  are  the  local  circumstan- 
ces of  the  Colonies  at  the  distance  of  a  thousand  leagues  from  the 
metropolis,  and  separated  by  a  wide  ocean,  as  will  forever  render  a 
just  and  equal  representation  in  the  supreme  legislative  utterly  im- 
practicable." 

The  next  letter  was  to  the  Earl  of  Chatham,  the  illustrious 
champion  of  American  rights  in  Parliament.  To  him  they 
stated  their  grievances  in  language  whose  moderation  and 
clearness  must  have  powerfully  impressed  a  mind  ever  sen- 
sitive to  human  liberties. 

"  Surely  it  is  no  ill  disposition,"  continues  the  address, 
"  in  the  loyal  subjects  of  a  patriot  King,  with  a  decency  and 
firmness  adapted  to  their  character,  to  assert  their  freedom." 
The  arguments  in  the  main  are  similar  to  those  of  the  pre- 
ceding ;  the  inseparability  of  taxation  and  representation ; 
the  impossibility  of  representation  on  an  equal  basis ;  the 
loyalty  of  the  Colonists  to  the  mother  country,  and  their 
rights  as  guaranteed  by  the  charters  granted  to  their  fore- 
fathers. Remembering  the  increasing  infirmities  of  the 
great  statesman,  they  say  :  — 

"  Nothing  would  have  prevailed  upon  the  House  to  have  given 
your  Lordship  this  trouble  but  the  necessity  of  a  powerful  advocate 
when  their  liberty  is  in  danger.  Such  they  have  more  than  once 
found  you  to  be ;  and  as  they  humbly  hope  they  have  never  for- 
feited your  patronage,  they  entreat  that  your  great  interest  in  the 
national  councils  may  still  be  employed  in  their  behalf,  that  they 
may  be  restored  to  the  standing  of  free  subjects." 

The  last  of  the  series  was  directed  to  "  the  Right  Honor- 
able the  Lords  Commissioners  of  the  Treasury."  This 
board  included  Lord  North,  the  determined  assertor  of 
coercive  measures;  Grafton,  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury, 
the  particular  object  of  the  keen  satire  of  "  Junius  ";  and 
Jenkinson,  the  proposer  of  the  Stamp  Act.  In  this  letter, 
which  the  House  kept  under  consideration  for  two  days,  Mr. 
Adams,  as  in  all  the  others,  denies  the  possibility  of  an 

VOL.  I.  11 


162  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

American  representation  in  Parliament.  The  dependence 
of  the  Colonies  on  Great  Britain  is  asserted,  and  the  griev- 
ance of  supporting  the  administration  of  justice  out  of  the 
Colonial  taxation  fully  set  forth. 

"  By  act  of  Parliament,  your  Lordships  are  sensible  that  the  Col- 
onies are  restrained  from  importing  commodities  the  growth  or 
manufacture  of  Europe,  saving  a  few  articles,  except  from  Great 
Britain.  By  this  policy,  the  demand  of  British  manufactures  from 
the  Colonies  is  greatly  increased ;  and  the  manufacturers  have  the 
advantage  of  their  own  price.  Hence  it  appears,  that  what  is 
gained  by  the  subjects  in  Britain  is  a  loss  to  those  in  America; 
for  there  can  be  no  doubt,  as  this  House  conceive,  but  that  if  the 
Colonists  were  allowed  to  purchase  such  commodities  at  foreign 
markets,  they  might  have  them  at  a  cheaper  rate  ;  or,  which  is  the 
same  thing  to  them,  the  British  manufacturers  would  be  necessi- 
tated to  reduce  their  price.  Thus  also,  with  regard  to  the  many 
articles  of  their  produce,  which  the  Colonies  are  by  act  of  Parlia- 
ment restrained  from  sending  to  foreign  ports.  This  occasions  a 
great  plenty  of  American  exports,  and  oftentimes  a  glut  at  the 
British  markets,  which  always  diminishes  the  price,  and  makes  a 
loss  to  the  American  and  an  equal  gain  to  the  subject  in  Britain. 
This  regulation,  evidently  designed  in  favor  of  those  of  his  Maj- 
esty's subjects  inhabiting  in  Great  Britain,  the  House  is  not  at  this 
time  complaining  of,  but  they  beg  your  Lordships'  consideration, 
whether,  in  addition  to  these  burdens,  it  is  not  grievous  to  their 
constituents  to  be  obliged  to  pay  duties  on  British  manufactures 
here ;  especially  considering,  that,  as  the  consumers  of  those  man- 
ufactures, they  pay  a  great  proportion  of  the  duties  and  taxes  laid 
upon  them  in  Britain.  It  is  computed  by  a  late  celebrated  British 
writer,  that  the  artificial  value  arising  from  these  duties  is  not  less 
than  fifty  per  cent.  Your  Lordships  will  then  form  an  estimate  of 
the  part  that  is  paid  annually  upon  the  importation  into  America, 
which  is  generally  allowed  to  be  at  least  two  millions  sterling.  So 
great  are  the  advantages  arising  yearly  to  Great  Britain  from  the 
Colonies,  most  of  which,  it  is  said,  were  settled  and  have  been 
maintained  and  defended,  till  within  a  very  few  years,  solely  at 
their  own  expense.     This  House  can  affirm  for  one  Province  only. 

"  But  the  bearing  an  unequal  share  of  the  public  burdens,  though 


1768.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  163 

a  real  grievance,  is  of  but  small  consideration  when  compared  with 
another,  in  the  mentioning  of  which,  the  House  beg  your  Lordships' 
indulgence.  The  duties  levied  in  America  by  virtue  of  the  afore- 
mentioned acts  were  imposed  with  the  sole  and  express  purpose  of 
raising  a  revenue ;  and  are  to  be  applied,  in  the  first  place,  for  the 
making  a  most  certain  and  adequate  provision  for  the  charge  of  the 
administration  of  justice,  and  the  support  of  civil  government,  in 
such  Colonies  where  it  shall  be  found  necessary ;  and  the  residue  is 
from  time  to  time  to  be  disposed  of  by  Parliamemt,  towards  defray- 
ing the  necessary  expenses  of  defending,  protecting,  and  securing 
the  Colonies.  It  is  humbly  submitted  whether  his  Majesty's  Com- 
mons in  Britain  have  not,  by  these  acts,  granted  the  property  of 
their  fellow-subjects  in  America,  without  their  consent  in  Parlia- 
ment. Your  Lordships  will  allow,  that  it  is  an  unalterable  rule  in 
equity,  that  a  man  shall  have  the  free  use  and  sole  disposal  of  his 
property.  This  original  principle,  to  the  lasting  honor  of  our  Brit- 
ish ancestors,  was  in  early  time  ingrafted  into  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, and  is  the  greatest  security  as  well  as  the  brightest  ornament 
of  a  British  subject.  It  adds  to  the  real  grandeur  of  the  British 
Monarch,  whose  happy  subjects  have  an  unshaken  opinion  of  their 
own  safety,  which  is  the  perfection  of  political  liberty.  Such  a  con- 
stitution shall  in  future  ages  be  admired  when  the  names  of  tyrants 
and  their  vassals  shall  be  alike  forgot.  This  Constitution,  my  Lords, 
is  fixed :  it  is  from  thence  that  all  power  in  the  state  derives  its 
authority :  therefore  no  power  can  exceed  the  bounds  of  it  with- 
out destroying  its  own  foundation.  It  is  conceived  that  even  the 
remotest  and  most  inconsiderable  subject  hath  an  equitable  claim  to 
the  benefit  of  the  fundamental  rules  of  the  Constitution ;  for  all 
British  subjects  are  alike  free.  The  blessings  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution will  forever  keep  the  subjects  in  this  Province  united  to 
the  mother  state,  as  long  as  the  sentiments  of  liberty  are  preserved : 
but  what  liberty  can  remain  to  them,  when  their  property,  the  fruit 
of  their  toil  and  industry  and  the  prop  of  all  their  future  hopes  in 
life,  may  be  taken  from  them  at  the  discretion  of  others  ?  They 
have  never  been  backward  in  affording  their  aid  to  his  Majesty,  to 
the  extent  of  their  ability.  They  can  say  without  vanity,  and  they 
may  be  allowed  to  boast,  that,  from  the  days  of  their  ancestors,  no 
subjects  have  given  more  signal  proofs  of  zeal  for  the  service  and 
honor  of  their  Sovereign,  and  affection  for  the  parent  country.     It 


164  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [Jan. 

has,  till  of  late,  been  the  invariable  usage  for  his  Majesty's  requisi- 
tions to  be  laid  before  their  own  representatives ;  and  their  aid  has 
not  been  tributary,  but  the  free  and  voluntary  gift  of  all.  The 
change  is  in  its  nature  delicate  and  important;  your  Lordships 
will  judge  whether  there  be  any  necessity  or  pressing  reasons  for 
it.  The  House  are  not  insensible  that  the  Colonies  have  their  ene- 
mies, who  may  have  represented  them  to  his  Majesty's  ministers 
and  the  Parliament  as  seditious,  disloyal,  and  disposed  to  set  up  an 
independency  on  Great  Britain ;  but  they  rely  upon  the  candor  of 
your  Lordships'  judgment.  They  can  affirm,  that  with  regard  to 
this  Province,  and,  they  presume,  all  the  Colonies,  the  charge  is  in- 
jurious and  unjust ;  the  superintending  authority  of  his  Majesty's 
high  court  of  Parliament,  the  supreme  legislative  over  the  whole 
empire,  is  as  clearly  admitted  here  as  in  Britain,  so  far  as  is  consist- 
ent with  the  fundamental  rules  of  the  Constitution ;  and  it  is  pre- 
sumed it  is  not  further  admissible  there. 

"  The  House  are  humbly  in  opinion  that  a  representation  of  their 
constituents  in  that  high  court,  by  reason  of  local  circumstances,  will 
forever  be  impracticable  and  that  his  Majesty's  royal  predeces- 
sors were  graciously  pleased,  by  charter,  to  erect  a  legislative  in  the 
Province,  as  perfectly  free  as  a  subordination  would  admit,  that  the 
subjects  here  might  enjoy  the  unalienable  right  of  a  representation ; 
and  further,  that  the  nation  hath  ever  since  considered  them  as  sub- 
jects, though  remote,  and  conceded  to  the  acts  of  their  subordinate 
legislation.  Their  charter  is  a  check  upon  them,  and  effectually  se- 
cures their  dependence  on  Great  Britain ;  for  no  acts  can  be  in  force 
till  the  King's  Governor  has  given  his  assent,  and  all  laws  that  are 
made  are  laid  before  his  Majesty,  who  at  any  time,  during  three 
years  after  they  are  made,  may  disannul  them  at  his  royal  pleasure. 
Under  this  check,  the  House  humbly  conceive,  a  representation  in 
Parliament  cannot  be  necessary  for  the  nation,  and  for  many  reasons 
it  cannot  be  eligible  to  them.  All  they  desire  is,  to  be  placed  on 
their  original  standing,  that  they  may  still  be  happy  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  their  invaluable  privileges,  and  the  nation  may  still  reap  the 
advantage  of  their  growth  and  prosperity. 

"  The  House  entreat  your  Lordships'  patience  one  moment  longer, 
while  they  just  mention  the  danger  they  apprehend  to  their  liberties, 
if  the  Crown,  in  addition  to  its  uncontroverted  right  of  appointing  a 
governor,  should  also  appoint  him  a  stipend  at  the  expense  of  the 


li 


i!" 


Hum* 


1768.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  165 

people,  and  without  their  consent ;  and  also  whether,  as  the  judges 
and  other  civil  officers  of  the  Province  do  not  hold  commissions  dur- 
ing good  behavior,  there  is  not  a  probability  that  arbitrary  rule  may 
in  some  time  take  effect,  to  the  subversion  of  the  principles  of  equity 
and  justice,  and  the  ruin  of  liberty  and  virtue. 

"  It  is  humbly  hoped  that  your  Lordships  will  conceive  a  favorable 
opinion  of  the  people  of  the  Province ;  and  that  you  will  patronize 
their  liberties,  so  far  as,  in  your  great  wisdom  and  candor,  you  shall 

judge  to  be  right." 

(Signed  by  the  Speaker.) 

The  petition  to  the  King  cannot  be  overrated  as  a  blend- 
ing of  simple  and  chaste  language.*  A  close  perusal  of  its 
carefully  constructed  sentences  reveals  nothing  that  the 
severest  critic  could  wish  altered.  The  Representatives,  ad- 
dressing their  "  most  gracious  Sovereign,' '  beg  leave  to  ap- 
proach the  throne,  and  lay  at  his  Majesty's  feet  their  humble 
supplication.f  U  y    , 

"  Our  ancestors,  the  first  settlers  of  this  country,  having,  with  the 
royal  consent,  which,  we  humbly  apprehend,  involves  the  consent  of 
the  nation,  and  at  their  own  great  expense,  migrated  from  the  moth- 
er kingdom,  took  possession  of  this  land,  at  that  time  a  wilderness 
the  right  whereof  they  purchased,  for  a  valuable  consideration,  of  the 
Council  established  at  Plymouth,  to  whom  it  had  been  granted  by 
your  Majesty's  royal  predecessor,  King  James  the  First. 

"From  the  principles  of  loyalty  to  their  sovereign,  which  will 
ever  warm  the  breast  of  a  true  subject,  though  remote,  they 
acknowledged  their  allegiance  to  the  English  Crown ;  and  your 
Majesty  will  allow  us,  with  all  humility,  to  say,  that  they  and  their 
posterity,  even  to  this  time,  have  afforded  frequent  and  signal  proofs 
of  their  zeal  for  the  honor  and  service  of  their  Prince,  and  their 
firm  attachment  to  the  parent  country. 

"  With  toil  and  fatigue,  perhaps  not  to  be  conceived  by  their 
brethren  and  fellow-subjects  at  home,  and  with  the  constant  peril  of 
their  lives,  from  a  numerous,  savage,  and  warlike  race  of  men,  they 
began  their  settlement,  and  God  prospered  them. 

"They  obtained  a  charter  from  King  Charles  the  First,  wherein 

*  See  Bancroft,  VI.  123.         I,        J      J/ 

t  Journal  of  the  House  for  1767  —  68,  Appendix.  Bradford's  State  Papers, 
p.  121. 


166  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

his  Majesty  was  pleased  to  grant  to  them,  and  their  heirs  and  as- 
signs forever,  all  the  lands  therein  described,  to  hold  of  him  and  his 
royal  successors,  in  fee  and  common  soccage  ;  which,  we  humbly  con- 
ceive, is  as  absolute  an  estate  as  the  subject  can  hold  under  the 
Crown.  And  in  the  same  charter  were  granted  to  them  and  their 
posterity  all  the  rights,  liberties,  privileges,  and  immunities  of  nat- 
ural subjects  born  within  the  realm. 

"  This  charter  they  enjoyed,  having,  as  we  most  humbly  conceive, 
punctually  complied  with  all  the  conditions  of  it,  till  in  an  unhappy 
time  it  was  vacated.  But  after  the  Revolution,  when  King  William 
and  Queen  Mary,  of  glorious  and  blessed  memory,  were  established 
on  the  throne,  —  in  that  happy  reign,  when,  to  the  joy  of  the  nation 
and  its  dependencies,  the  crown  was  settled  in  your  Majesty's  illus- 
trious family,  the  inhabitants  of  this  Province  shared  in  the  common 
blessing.  They  then  were  indulged  with  another  charter,  in  which 
their  Majesties  were  pleased,  for  themselves,  their  heirs,  and  succes- 
sors, to  grant  and  confirm  to  them  as  ample  estate  in  the  lands  or 
territories  as  was  granted  by  the  former  charter,  together  with  other 
the  most  essential  rights  and  liberties  contained  therein ;  the  princi- 
pal of  which  is  that  which  your  Majesty's  subjects  within  the  realm 
have  held  a  most  sacred  right,  of  being  taxed  only  by  representa- 
tives of  their  own  free  election. 

"  Thus  blessed  with  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  through  the  indul- 
gent smiles  of  Heaven  and  under  the  auspicious  government  of  your 
Majesty  and  your  royal  predecessors,  your  people  of  this  Province 
have  been  happy,  and  your  Majesty  has  acquired  a  numerous  in- 
crease of  loyal  subjects,  a  large  extent  of  dominion,  and  a  new  and 
inexhaustible  source  of  commerce,  wealth,  and  glory." 

They  then  acknowledge  "  his  Majesty's  High  Court  of 
Parliament  the  supreme  legislative  power  of  the  whole  em- 
pire ;  the  superintending  authority  of  which  is  clearly  ad- 
mitted in  all  cases  that  can  consist  with  the  fundamental 
rights  of  nature  and  the  Constitution."  The  enforcing  of 
the  late  revenue  acts,  they  say,  will  leave  them  "  only  the 
name  of  free  subjects  ";  and  they  implore  his  Majesty  to  take 
their  unhappy  circumstances  under  his  royal  consideration, 
and  afford  them  relief  in  such  manner  as  in  his  Majesty's 
great  wisdom  and  clemency  should  seem  meet. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  167 

Mrs.  Hannah  Wells,  the  daughter  of  Samuel  Adams,  used 
to  relate  that,  on  this  or  some  other  occasion,  when  her 
father  had  been  writing  at  night,  and  was  glancing  over  the 
petition  to  the  King  before  leaving  the  house,  she  remarked 
that  the  paper  would  doubtless  soon  be  touched  by  the  royal 
hand.  "  It  will,  my  dear,"  replied  he,  "  more  likely  be 
spurned  by  the  royal  foot,"  —  showing  that  although  it 
may  have  been  the  general  opinion  that  his  Majesty  would 
regard  their  supplications  favorably,  the  writer  had  but  little 
faith  in  the  mercy  and  justice  of  the  King. 

No  one  can  read  this  petition,  and  the  preceding  letters, 
without  a  profound  impression  of  the  firm  loyalty  of  the  Col- 
onists towards  the  mother  country.  As  yet  the  most  dis- 
tant idea  of  independence  was  disclaimed.  All  that  the 
Americans  asked  was  to  be  restored  to  their  condition  before 
the  passage  of  the  late  revenue  acts  ;  and  of  the  justice  of 
these  requests,  time  has  afforded  the  most  undeniable  proofs, 
even  were  they  not  supported  by  the  reasoning  of  the  Ameri- 
can patriots  and  of  the  most  eloquent  of  British  statesmen. 
How  exactly  the  private  opinions  of  Samuel  Adams  accorded 
with  those  expressed  in  his  public  writings  is  revealed  by 
the  subjoined  letter  to  the  agent  in  England,  written  just 
after  the  above-named  state  papers  had  been  penned. 
Those  papers  indeed,  by  a  comparison  with  the  extract 
from  Mr.  Adams's  letters  in  1765,  already  given,  will  be 
found  to  agree  with  his  individual  views  in  the  minutest 
details,  and  illustrate  the  entire  consistency  of  the  writer's 
character. 

Boston,  January  30th,  1768. 
Sir,— 
lam  to  acknowledge  your  favor,  enclosing  the  several  acts  of 
Parliament  passed  in  the  last  session  relating  to  America.  The 
House  of  Representatives  have  written  you  so  fully,  in  which  I 
have  the  good  fortune  to  have  my  own  private  sentiments  so  exactly 
expressed  as  to  render  it  needless  for  me  to  say  anything  in  this  let- 
ter.    The  House  have  sent  a  humble  petition  to  his  Majesty  and 


168  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

representations  to  his  ministers,  some  of  which  it  is  hoped  have  ere 
now  come  into  your  hands,  and  others  will  soon  be  transmitted 
to  you.  It  may  seem  strange  that  these  addresses  do  not  pass 
through  the  medium  of  the  Governor  of  the  Province  ;  but  it  is  my 
private  opinion,  that  there  is  a  want  of  confidence  between  the  Gov- 
ernor and  the  House,  which  will  never  be  removed  as  long  as  this 
gentleman  is  in  the  chair.  In  short,  the  dependence  seems  to  be 
altogether  upon  those  noblemen  and  others  who  have  heretofore 
distinguished  themselves  as  the  guardians  under  his  Majesty  of  the 
rights  of  British  American  subjects. 

You  will  observe  that  the  House  still  insist  upon  that  inestimable 
right  of  nature  and  the  Constitution,  of  being  taxed  only  by  repre- 
sentatives of  their  own  free  election ;  which  they  think  is  infringed 
by  the  late  acts  for  establishing  a  revenue  in  America.  It  is  by  no 
means  to  be  understood  that  they  desire  a  representation  in  Parlia- 
ment, because,  by  reason  of  local  circumstances,  it  is  impracticable 
that  they  should  be  equally  and  fairly  represented.  There  is  noth- 
ing, therefore,  the  Colonies  would  more  dread. 

The  few  gentlemen  in  the  House  who  did  not  give  their  votes 
declared  this  as  a  reason, —  that  they  feared  if  the  House  should 
insist  that  they*  could  not  be  legally  taxed,  because  they  were  not 
represented  in  Parliament,  it  would  be  construed  as  if  they  would  be 
content  to  be  represented.  And  I  hope  you  will,  as  you  have  oppor- 
tunity, make  it  known  to  the  Ministry,  that  the  people  here,  as  they 
always  have  done,  will  cheerfully  afford  their  utmost  aid  for  the 
honor  and  service  of  their  sovereign,  and  the  interest  of  the  mother 
state,  to  which  they  are  inviolably  attached.  All  they  desire  is  to 
be  placed  on  the  standing  in  which  they  were  originally  put,  and  to 
have,  as  free  subjects,  the  honor  and  privilege  of  voluntarily  contrib- 
uting to  the  service  of  his  Majesty  at  all  times,  when  his  Majesty 
shall  be  graciously  pleased  to  order  his  requisitions  to  be  laid  upon 
their  own  representatives. 

The  House  yesterday  made  you  a  grant  of  six  hundred  pounds 
sterling  for  two  years'  services,  and  the  same  sum  to  Richard  Jack- 
son, Esq.,  for  his  services  for  two  years.  I  have  not  the  honor  of  a 
correspondence  with  that  gentleman,  but  I  think  it  might  not  be 
amiss  that  he,  as  well  as  you,  should  be  made  acquainted  that  every 
member  that  spoke  upon  these  grants  expressed  a  high  sense  of  the 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  169 

merit  of  both  your  and  his  services ;  and  I  have  no  reason  but  to 

think  they  spoke  the  sentiments  of  the  whole  House.     Neither  of 

your  expenses  were  considered,  as  it  was  thought  improper,  till  the 

House  should  receive  your  several  amounts. 

Your  acceptance  of  the  enclosed  pamphlets  will  oblige,  sir, 

Your  most  humble  servant, 

Samuel  Adams. 
Dennts  Deberdt,  Esq. 

It  will  be  observed,  that  among  the  calm  and  earnest 
papers  which  the  House  had  prepared  during  the  month 
of  January,  appealing  to  the  most  eminent  statesmen  and 
noblemen  of  the  realm,  they  had  sent  no  memorial  to  the 
Parliament,  thereby  clearly  indicating  their  denial  of  the 
right  of  taxation  by  that  body.  Their  petition,  made  di- 
rectly to  the  King,  recognizes  only  the  immediate  authority 
of  the  Throne,  whence  had  emanated  their  original  charter. 

The  House  having  adopted  the  letters  and  petition,  the 
next  step  was  to  inform  the  other  Colonial  governments, 
with  a  view  of  securing  their  co-operation.     Mr.  Adams, 
in  his  account  of  the  proceedings  of  the  House  to  Lord 
Hillsborough,*  states  that  a  motion  was  made,  on  the  21st 
of  January,  to  consider  the  expediency  of  writing  to  the 
Assemblies  of  the  other  Colonies,  "  with  respect  to  the  im- 
portance of  joining  with  them,  in  petitioning  his  Majesty  at 
this  time."     On  the  day  assigned,  eighty-two  members  being 
present,  the  question  was  debated.     The  motion  failed  by  a 
vote  of  two  to  one,  on  the  ground  that  it  would  be  consid- 
ered in  England  as  forming  a  second  congress.     The  House 
at  this  time  consisted  of  about  one  hundred  and  ten  mem- 
bers, and  the  country  members  especially,  with  perhaps  a 
few  exceptions,  had  yet  to  fully  appreciate  the  impending 
danger.     The  defeat  of  the  resolution  was  highly  gratifying 
to  Bernard,  who  probably  saw  in  it  the  dawn  of  returning 
obedience ;  but  Samuel  Adams  was  indefatigable  in  his  op- 
position to  the  principle  of  taxation,  and  the  Governor,  in  a 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  pp.  153,  154.     See  Bancroft,  VI.  125. 


170  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Feb. 

letter  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  testifies  to  the  efforts  of  Adams 
and  the  few  members  who  worked  with  him.  The  results 
were  soon  apparent.*  On  the  4th  of  February,  a  com- 
plete revolution  had  been  accomplished  in  the  views  of  the 
House,  when,  eighty-three  members  being  present,  the  ques- 
tion was  again  put,  and  carried  by  a  large  majority.  The 
former  vote  was  erased  from  the  journals,  and  a  committee, 
of  which  Adams  was  one,  was  appointed  to  prepare  a  letter 
to  be  sent  to  each  of  the  other  Colonies. 

The  report  was  made  on  the  11th,  —  Samuel  Adams, 
the  originator  of  the  measure,  being  the  author  of  this  "  mas- 
terly circular  letter,"  which  was  accepted  almost  unani- 
mously.! The  letter,  which  is  directed  to  "  the  Speakers 
of  the  respective  Houses  of  Representatives  and  Burgesses 
on  this  continent,' '  commenced  by  referring  to  the  late  acts 
of  Parliament. 

"  As  it  is  a  subject  in  which  every  Colony  is  deeply  interested, 
they  have  no  reason  to  doubt  but  your  House  is  deeply  impressed 
with  its  importance,  and  that  such  constitutional  measures  will  be 
come  into  as  are  proper.  It  seems  to  be  necessary  that  all  possible 
care  should  be  taken,  that  the  representations  of  the  several  Assem- 
blies, upon  so  delicate  a  point,  should  harmonize  with  each  other. 
The  House,  therefore,  hope  that  this  letter  will  be  candidly  consid- 
ered in  no  other  light  than  as  expressing  a  disposition  freely  to 
communicate  their  mind  to  a  sister  Colony  upon  a  common  concern, 
in  the  same  manner  as  they  would  be  glad  to  receive  the  sentiments 
of  your  or  any  other  House  of  Assembly  on  the  continent." 

It  then  recites  in  brief  the  representations  of  the  House  to 
the  Ministry  in  their  late  appeals,  embracing  every  point  of 
those  papers,  and  makes  an  emphatic  denial  of  any  disposi- 
tion to  make  themselves  independent  of  the  mother  country. 

"  The  House,"  they  conclude,  "  is  fully  satisfied  that  your  As- 
sembly is  too  generous  and  enlarged  in  sentiment  to  believe  that  this 
letter  proceeds  from  an  ambition  of  taking  the  lead  or  dictating  to  the 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  125.  f  Bancroft.     Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  134. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  171 

other  Assemblies.  They  freely  submit  their  opinion  to  the  judg- 
ment of  others,  and  shall  take  it  kind  in  your  House  to  point  out  to 
them  anything  further  that  may  be  thought  necessary/'  * 

The  Ministry  considered  this  circular  as  surpassing  all 
that  had  yet  been  done  in  opposition  to  the  government. 
Their  evil  estimation  of  it  was  increased  by  the  representa- 
tions of  informers  and  government  writers  in  Boston,  who 
distorted  its  effects  on  the  other  Colonies,  and  used  it  as  an 
additional  incentive  for  sending  an  armed  force  into  the 
Province.  A  few  years  later,  Mr.  Adams,  as  "  Candidus," 
devotes  several  columns  in  the  press  to  a  history  of  this 
paper  and  its  results. f 

"  I  have  already  mentioned  the  circular  letter,  written  by  the 
House  of  Representatives  of  this  Province  to  the  other  Colonies, 
dated  the  11th  of  February,  1768,  and  the  very  different  treat- 
ment it  met  with  from  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough  and  the  respectable 
bodies  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  And  also  the  circular  letter 
which  his  Lordship  himself  was  pleased  to  send  to  those  Colonies, 
wherein  he  recommended  t«  t|jem '  to  treat  it  with  the  contempt  it  de- 
served.' But,  as  the  segments  contained  in  the  letter  of  the  House 
were  so  exactly  similar  to  those  of  the  other  Colonies,  and  the  sub- 
ject of  it  was  of  equal  importance  to  them  all,  it  was  not  in  the  power 
of  his  Lordship  to  efface  the  impressions  it  made,  or  to  disturb  that 
harmony  which  was  the  happy  effect  of  it.  Vis  unita  fortior.  That 
union  of  the  Colonies  in  their  common  danger,  by  which  they  be- 
came powerful,  was  the  occasion  of  the  greatest  perplexity  to  their 
enemies  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic;  and  it  has  been,  ever  since, 
their  constant  endeavor  by  all  manner  of  arts  to  destroy  it.  In  tnis, 
it  must  be  confessed,  they  have  discovered  a  unanimity,  zeal,  and 
perseverance,  worthy  to  be  imitated  by  those  who  are  em4lftr,5ed  in 
the  cause  of  American  freedom.  It  is  by  united  counsels^  a  steady 
zeal,  and  a  manly  fortitude,  that  this  continent  mus^expect  to  re- 
cover its  violated  rights  and  liberties."  *i 

The  replies  of  the  other  Colonies  were  all  that  the  warm- 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  125.     Grahame,  II.  431-432. 
t  Boston  Gazette  for  September  16,  1771. 


172  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Feb. 

est  patriot  in  Massachusetts  could  desire.*  The  idea  of  a 
regular  correspondence  between  the  several  Provinces,  in  op- 
position to  government, —  Samuel  Adams's  favorite  measure, 
—  was  undoubtedly  quickened  and  directed  to  practical  re- 
sults by  this  circular,  and  in  this  respect  the  Ministry  might 
well  have  regarded  it  as  dangerous,  and  tending  towards  in- 
dependence, though  its  immediate  object  was  the  reverse  of 
such  a  plan,  as  all  the  papers  of  the  present  session  distinctly 
assert ;  for  it  was  not  until  midsummer  of  this  year,  when  it 
(  was  evident  that  armed  force  was  to  be  used  to  crush  the 
Province  into  submission,  that  Samuel  Adams  resigned  the 
hope  of  justice  from  Parliament,  and  made  American  inde- 
pendence the  one  aim  of  his  existence.! 

*  Grahame,  IT.  482.     Bancroft,  VI.  146-150. 

t  In  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  the  series  of  legislative  papers  from  which  extracts 
have  just  been  given  are  claimed  as  his  production.  The  only  ground  upon 
which  such  an  assumption  can  be  based  is  the  supposition  by  John  Adams, 
half  a  century  afterwards,  that  Otis  must  have  written  them  (see  letter  to  Wil- 
liam Tudor,  March  7,  1819,  in  John  Adams's  Works,  X.  367)  because  he  remem- 
bered Otis  to  have  said  that  he,  having  drawn  them  up,  had  given  them  "  to 
Sam  to  quieu  whew  them,"  —  an  expression  which  John  Adams  said  he  was 
unable  to  explain.  He  then  goes  on  to  quote  from  the  papers,  repeatedly  giv- 
ing it  as  his  opinion,  that  they  must  have  been  written  by  Otis  and  pruned  by 
Samuel  Adams. 

When  John  Adams  wrote  the  above  letter,  the  third  volume  of  Hutchinson's 
History,  pointing  out  Samuel  Adams  as  the  principal  writer  of  state  papers 
for  the  House  of  Kepresentatives,  had  not  been  published,  though  it  had  been 
many  years  in  manuscript  in  England,  in  the  keeping  of  the  Governor's  de- 
scendants. There  were  periods  when  John  Adams,  in  the  pursuit  of  his  pro- 
fession as  a  lawyer,  knew  but  little  of  the  minutiae  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
Assembly,  and  his  respect  for  the  legal  abilities  of  Otis  led  him  repeatedly, 
in  his  old  age,  to  hastily  attribute  to  him  writings  which,  as  his  contemporary 
diary  of  those  times  shows,  could  not  have  been  by  Otis.  He  was  thus  in  error 
in  pointing  to  Otis  as  in  part  author  of  the  "  Appeal  to  the  World";  and  as 
the  writer  of  the  pamphlet  in  October,  1772,  which  he  remembered  as  containing 
"  the  essence  "  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The  first  of  these,  as  is 
hereafter  shown,  was  by  Samuel  Adams,  as  was  also  that  portion  of  the 
pamphlet  included  under  the  head  of  "  The  Rights  of  the  Colonists  as  Men, 
as  Christians,  and  as  Subjects."  (Compare  Bancroft,  VI.  312,  431  ;  and  Bar- 
ry's Massachusetts,  II.  399,  450.)  In  1771,  Samuel  Adams  unquestionably 
wrote  the  masterly  letter  to  Franklin  from  the  Assembly.     Otis  was  then  in 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  173 

In  Massachusetts  the  circular  letter  created  no  less  com- 
motion than  in  England.  The  Governor  and  his  officers  re- 
newed their  applications  to  persons  in  authority  across  the 
Atlantic,  advocating  the  immediate  sending  of  a  fleet  and 
regiments  to  counteract  the  growing  freedom  of  action  and 
expression  in  the  Province.  The  Board  of  Commissioners 
of  the  Revenue  sent  a  powerful  memorial  to  the  Ministry, 
designed  to  further  these  requests.  Every  act  of  the  Colo- 
nists, though  characterized  by  moderation  and  calm  good 
sense,  was  distorted  into  rebellion  by  these  malignant  ene- 
mies of  the  popular  liberties,  and  the  Ministry  were  at  once 
ready  to  proceed  with  the  most  rigorous  measures,  partic- 
ularly against  Massachusetts. 

The  moving  cause  of  these  threatened  proceedings  could 

the  House,  but  certainly  could  not  have  had  any  hand  in  its  composition.  Now- 
had  John  Adams,  in  after  years,  known  of  this  letter,  he  would  have  been  equally 
likely  to  think  that  it  was  by  Otis,  but  perhaps  "  pruned  "  by  his  colleague. 
These  remarks  will  apply  to  very  many  of  the  state  papers  of  Samuel  Adams. 

But  against  the  supposition  of  John  Adams  —  a  supposition  sustained  by 
no  proof — that  Otis  was  the  writer  of  the  celebrated  letter  of  the  Assembly  of 
1768,  there  is  positive  contemporary  evidence  that  the  author  was  Samuel 
Adams.  This  is  asserted  by  Andrew  Eliot,  a  minister  of  Boston,  a  reliable 
man,  a  firm  patriot,  and  thoroughly  versed  in  the  political  movements  of  the 
town.  Bancroft  (VI.  119,  120)  shows  that  Samuel  Adams  wrote  the  letters. 
The  facts  which  would  seem  to  set  all  controversy  at  rest  on  the  subject  have 
come  to  light  since  the  Life  of  Otis  was  published,  or  those  state  papers  would 
scarcely  have  been  there  claimed  for  him. 

Neither  the  style  nor  the  sentiments  are  those  of  Otis.  The  sentiments  are 
the  reverse  of  Otis's  doctrines  repeatedly  expressed,  but  are  exactly  those  of 
Samuel  Adams,  as  found  in  all  his  previous  as  well  as  subsequent  state  papers 
and  private  letters ;  while  the  language  is  so  evidently  his,  that  upon  a  curi- 
ous comparison,  it  would  almost  appear  that  he  had  had  his  own  letters  of 
1765-6  before  him  while  penning  these  documents. 

They  were  published  in  London  in  1768,  at  the  instance  of  Thomas  Hollis ; 
and  as  Samuel  Adams  forwarded  them  to  the  agent  in  the  winter  of  that  year, 
it  is  most  likely  that  Hollis,  who  was  the  warm  friend  of  education  in  the  Col- 
onies, was  furnished  with  early  copies  by  Deberdt,  who  doubtless  also  exhibited 
to  him  Mr.  Adams's  private  letters,  in  which  these  very  state  papers  are  repeat- 
edly alluded  to  as  the  "  true  sentiments  "  of  Massachusetts,  by  which  the  title  of 
Hollis's  book,  "  The  True  Sentiments  of  America,"  may  have  been  suggested. 
This  title  has  since  been  erroneously  based  upon  a  political  essay,  "  A  Disser- 


174  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Feb. 

not  long  be  kept  secret  from  the  Colonists.  Samuel  Adams 
in  all  his  writings,  private  and  public,  at  this  time  reveals 
his  firm  conviction  that  the  Governor  and  his  minions  had 
been  engaged  in  misrepresenting  the  acts  and  motives  of  the 
Province  in  their  secret  correspondence ;  and  he  repeatedly 
advocated  the  removal  of  Bernard,  between  whom  and  the 
people  he  knew  all  confidence  had  been  destroyed.  Time 
has  proved  the  correctness  of  his  views.  The  letters  both  of 
Bernard  and  Hutchinson,  on  file  at  the  State-paper  Office  in 
London,  are  filled  with  urgent  appeals  for  armed  forces  to 
subdue  the  spirit  of  liberty.  The  determination  to  exclude 
the  crown  officers  from  the  Council  had  been  particularly 
the  object  of  Bernard's  correspondence,  and  the  Earl  of  Shel- 
burne  having  replied  that  the  question   of  admitting  the 

tation  on  the  Canon  and  Feudal  Law,"  by  John  Adams,  which  was  printed  at 
the  end  of  the  book,  and  which  Hollis  had  attributed  to  Gridley  on  sending  it 
to  Eliot.  "  The  Dissertation  on  the  Canon  and  Feudal  Law,"  replies  Eliot, 
"  was  not  written,  by  the  late  Mr.  Gridley.  I  have  been  privately ,  but  authenti- 
cally, informed  that  the  author  was  Mr.  Adams,  (not  our  Representative,  who 
penned  the  address  to  the  King  and  the  letters  contained  in  the  first  part  of 
the  collection,  but)  a  young  gentleman  of  the  law,  who  hath  lately  removed 
from  the  country  into  Boston,  and  is  likely  to  make  a  shining  figure  at  the 
bar."  The  state  papers  in  the  book,  being  the  avowed  opinions  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  were  the  "  true  sentiments  " ;  to  which  John  Adams's  essay 
was  manifestly  an  appendix,  —  the  effusion  of  an  individual,  not  the  accepted 
doctrines  of  a  people. 

Some  of  the  papers  in  the  collection  are  extant  in  the  autograph  of  Samuel 
Adams,  —  evidently  original  drafts,  as  shown  by  the  style  of  the  penmanship, 
and  the  erasures  and  interlineations,  which  would  hardly  be  found  in  a  copy 
of  another's  production ;  and  it  is  yet  to  be  shown  that  any  of  them  ever  existed 
in  the  handwriting  of  any  other  person.  The  "  address  to  the  King,  and  the 
letters  contained  in  the  first  part  of  the  collection,"  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Eliot  as 
having  been  written  by  Samuel  Adams,  are  those  adopted  by  the  House  during 
this  session,  including  that  to  the  agent,  and  those  to  the  several  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  extracts  from  which  have  already  been  given.  This  is  direct,  con- 
temporary, and  unimpeachable  evidence  as  to  the  authorship.  Moreover,  their 
style  is  uniform,  and  shows  the  hand  of  one  author.  Finally,  of  the  celebrated 
letter  to  Deberdt,  Mr.  Adams,  writing  to  that  gentleman  (see  p.  167),  almost 
admits  that  he  was  the  writer.  He  speaks  of  it  as  one  "  in  which  I  have  the 
good  fortune  to  have  my  own  private  sentiments  so  exactly  expressed  as  to 
render  it  needless  for  me  to  say  anything  in  this  letter." 


1768.J  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  175 

Lieutenant-Governor  to  the  Board  rested  exclusively  with 
the  Council,  and  signifying  his  Majesty's  approval  of  the 
Governor's  conduct,  the  House  requested  a  copy  of  the  no- 
bleman's letter  which  had  been  read  to  them.  The  letter 
was  at  length  reluctantly  submitted,  the  Governor  stating 
that  he  knew  of  no  letters  of  his  own  which  he  thought 
could  be  of  use  on  this  occasion.  Mr.  Adams  was  oh  the 
committee  to  reply,  and  the  original  draft  of  the  answer  yet 
remains  in  his  handwriting.  The  unwillingness  of  Bernard 
to  exhibit  the  letter  from  Shelburne  was  easily  accounted 
for,  upon  finding  that  his  Lordship  distinctly  alluded  to  the 
Governor's  statements  in  several  letters  to  the  Ministry, 
These  letters  had  not  only  maligned  the  Province  generally, 
but  had  singled  out  Otis  and  Adams  as  the  "  two  chiefs  of 
the  faction."  The  answer  to  the  Governor's  speech  fully 
reviews  the  tendency  of  his  Lordship's  letter,  traces  his  un- 
favorable disposition  against  the  Province  to  Bernard's  cor- 
respondence, and  does  not  fail  to  show  his  Excellency  the 
opinion  of  the  House  on  his  conduct. 

A  writer,  over  the  signature  of  "  A  True  Patriot,"  prob- 
ably Otis,  though  thought  by  some  to  be  Joseph  Warren, 
who  had  lately  become  conspicuous  as  a  contributor  to  the 
public  press,  attacked  the  Governor,  late  in  February,  on 
his  "  enmity  to  the  Province,"  his  "  cruelty  to  a  loyal  peo- 
ple," and  his  "  obstinate  perseverance  in  the  path  of  malice." 
"  But  I  refrain,"  so  the  writer  concludes,  "  lest  a  full  repre- 
sentation of  the  hardships  suffered  by  this  too  long  insulted 
people  should  lead  them  to  an  unwarrantable  revenge."  * 
The  excited  tone  of  the  publication  points  rather  to  Otis 
than  to  Warren  as  the  author.  The  Governor,  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  denounced  the  article  to  the  Legislature  as  libel- 
lous, and  demanded  the  prosecution  of  the  author.  The 
House  refused  to  take  further  notice  of  the  publication,  on 
the  ground  that  it  contained  nothing  that  could  "  affect  the 
majesty  of  the  King,  the  dignity  of  the  government,  the 

*  Boston  Gazette,  Feb.  29,  1768. 


176  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

honor  of  the  General  Court,  or  the  true  interest  of  the  Prov- 
ince." * 

"The  liberty  of  the  press  is  a  great  bulwark  of  the  liberty  of 
the  people.  It  is  therefore  the  incumbent  duty  of  those  who  are 
constituted  the  guardians  of  the  people's  rights  to  defend  and  main- 
tain it.  This  House,  however,  as  one  branch  of  the  Legislature, 
in  which  capacity  alone  they  have  any  authority,  are  ready  to  dis- 
countenance an  abuse  of  this  privilege  whenever  there  shall  be 
occasion  for  it.  Should  the  proper  bounds  of  it  at  any  time  be 
transgressed  to  the  prejudice  of  individuals  or  the  public,  it  is  their 
opinion  at  present  that  provision  is  already  made  for  the  punish- 
ment of  offenders  in  the  common  course  of  the  law." 

The  peevishness  and  vanity  of  Bernard  made  him  show 
great  annoyance  at  the  attacks  of  the  press,  which  a  more 
dignified  character  would  have  passed  over  in  silence. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  session,  a  committee,  consisting 
of  Otis,  Adams,  Dexter,  and  Sayward,  reported  a  series  of 
resolutions  for  the  encouragement  of  manufactures  in  the 
Province,  which  were  carried  by  the  vote  of  all  except  Timo- 
thy Buggies,  a  stanch  loyalist,  who  generally  voted  against 
the  measures  of  the  patriots. 

"Resolved,  That  this  house  will  use  their  utmost  endeavors,  and  en- 
force their  endeavors  by  example,  in  suppressing  extravagance,  idle- 
ness, and  vice,  and  promoting  industry,  economy,  and  good  morals  in 
their  respective  towns." 

"  And  in  order  to  prevent  the  unnecessary  exportation  of  money, 
of  which  the  Province  has  of  late  been  so  much  drained,  it  is  fur- 
ther resolved,  that  this  House  will,  by  all  prudent  means,  endeavor 
to  discountenance  the  use  of  foreign  superfluities,  and  to  encourage 
the  manufactures  of  this  Province." 

After  the  House  had  passed  a  resolution  requesting  the 
executive  to  appoint  a  day  of  fasting  and  prayer  throughout 
the  Province,  the  Governor  prorogued  the  Legislature  with 
a  speech,  in  which  he  discovered  his  hatred  of  the  leading 
members.     Beferring  to  Shelburne's  letter,  he  says :  — 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  March  3,  1768.     Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  119. 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  177 

"Prudent  men,  moderate  men,  would  have  considered  it  as  an 
admonition  rather  than  a  censure,  and  would  have  made  use  of  it  as 
a  means  of  reconciliation  rather  than  of  farther  distraction.  But 
there  are  men  to  whose  being  (I  mean  the  being  of  their  importance) 
everlasting  contention  is  necessary.     And  by  these  has  this  letter 

been  dragged  into  public Time  and  experience  will  soon 

pull  the  mask  off  those  false  patriots  who  are  sacrificing  their  coun- 
try to  the  gratification  of  their  own  passions I  shall  defend 

this  injured  country  from  the  imputations  which  are  cast  upon  it, 
and  the  evils  which  threaten  it,  arising  from  the  machinations  of  a 
few,  very  few,  discontented  men."  * 

Such  was  the  royal  Governor's  estimate  of  those  who  con- 
sidered themselves  the  keepers  of  the  public  liberties,  and  as 
holding  them  in  sacred  trust  for  the  millions  of  posterity. 
He  continued  his  importunities  for  troops ;  and  the  crown 
officers  availed  themselves  of  the  anniversary  of  the  repeal 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  March  18th,  to  invent  new  libels  against 
the  people.  As  they  spread  reports  of  an  intended  insurrec- 
tion on  that  day,  the  Sons  of  Liberty  were  the  more  deter- 
mined to  preserve  order.  Rioting  had  been  unknown  since 
the  repeal  of  the  Act.  Passive  resistance  as  yet  was  the 
policy,  as  exemplified  in  the  meeting  of  the  merchants  on  the 
day  on  which  the  Court  was  prorogued,  when  they  had  re- 
nounced by  subscription  their  commerce  with  England,  and 
invited  the  merchants  of  the  whole  continent  to  join  them. 

The  18th  was  celebrated  with  the  usual  enthusiasm,  but 
without  violence  of  any  kind.  The  effigies  of  two  of  the 
crown  officers  were  found  suspended  on  the  Liberty  Tree  at 
daybreak,  but  were  instantly  taken  down  by  the  more  mod- 
erate and  prudent.  A  festival  was  held  at  Faneuil  Hall, 
where  toasts  were  drunk  to  the  freedom  of  the  press,  to  Paoli 
and  the  martyrs  of  liberty.  The  dinner  broke  up  early,  and, 
though  the  occasion  had  generally  been  celebrated  with  an 
illumination,  no  bonfire  was  lighted  at  night.  Hutchinson 
recorded  at  the  time  that  "  the  mob,  if  there  was  one,  was 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  March  4,  1768. 

VOL.    I.  12 


178  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[March,  Apr. 


only  such  as  was  usual  on  the  fifth  of  November  and  other 
holiday s."  Yet  Bernard  represented  that  "  many  hundreds 
paraded  the  streets  with  yells  and  outcries,  which  were  quite 
terrible,"  and  when  they  passed  his  house  he  was  afraid  they 
were  breaking  in.  Asserting  that  he  and  the  Commissioners 
were  without  protection,  and  himself  without  the  shadow  of 
power,  and  exposed  to  the  "  madness  of  the  people,"  he 
again  urged  the  sending  of  military  force ; .  and  while  he  en- 
treated that  his  correspondence  might  be  kept  secret,  he 
artfully  protested  his  innocence  among  those  whom  he  had 
maligned,  and  wished  they  might  see  his  letters  to  the  Min- 
istry as  an  evidence  of  his  friendship  for  the  Province ! 

Encompassed  by  powerful  and  designing  enemies,  whose 
efforts  were  to  rule  by  the  bayonet,  and  having  lost  all  confi- 
dence in  Government,  in  consequence  of  the  corrupt  rotten- 
borough  system  of  elections  to  Parliament,  the  Colonists  saw 
but  faint  gleams  of  hope  in  the  gloomy  future.  How  many 
descried  the  distant  light  of  independence  beyond  these 
clouds,  none  can  tell.  Continued  oppression  must  have  sug- 
gested it  as  perhaps  near  at  hand.  Eash  writers  spoke  of 
forcible  resistance,  and  it  seemed  at  times  that  the  proper 
occasion  only  was  needed  to  bring  on  a  crisis.  But  in  Bos- 
ton the  public  mind  was  held  within  the  bounds  of  reason, 
and,  swayed  by  the  sagacious  counsels  of  the  patriot  leaders, 
the  Americans  never  passed  beyond  the  limits  of  legal  oppo- 
sition. The  press,  made  eloquent  by  the  pens  of  gifted 
writers,  spoke  for  the  people,  declaring  their  unalterable  de- 
termination to  refuse  the  payment  of  the  taxes  which  a  de- 
praved Parliament  had  imposed.  That  Parliament,  —  the 
twelfth,  —  which  was  dissolved  in  March,  was  the  most  cor- 
rupt that  had  disgraced  England,  —  open  to  bribes,  profli- 
gate, and  shameless.  The  rights  of  America,  intrusted  to 
such  a  body,  became  a  by-word ;  and  the  Colonists,  from 
regarding  the  Parliament  as  the  bulwark  of  their  liber- 
ties, came  at  last  to  look  upon  it  as  their  worst  enemy.* 

*  Bancroft,  VII.  137. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  179 

The  solemn  declarations  of  the  press  in  Boston  were  ap- 
proved by  the  prudent  and  moderate  Dickinson  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, whose  "  Farmer's  Letters  "  had  already  inspired  thou- 
sands with  his  own  ennobling  sentiments.  "  Almighty  God 
himself,"  said  he,  "  will  look  down  upon  your  righteous  con- 
test with  approbation You  are  assigned  by  Divine 

Providence,  in  the  appointed  order  of  things,  the  protect- 
ors of  unborn  ages,  whose  fate  depends  upon  your  virtue." 
The  magic  of  his  eloquence  met  the  spirit  of  Boston ;  and 
on  the  22d  of  March  the  people  responded  to  his  appeal, 
appointing  Samuel  Adams,  John  Hancock,  and  Joseph  War- 
ren to  express  their  thanks  to  the  author  of  the  Farmer's 
Letters,  as  the  friend  of  Americans  and  the  benefactor  of 
mankind.* 

No  sooner  did  the  Circular  Letter  arrive  in  England,  than 
the  Ministry  seeing  the  effect  it  must  have  in  establishing  a 
concert  of  action  between  the  several  Assemblies,  denounced 
it  as  of  "  most  dangerous  and  factious  tendency,  calculated 
to  inflame  the  minds  of  his  Majesty's  good  subjects  in  the 
Colonies,  to  promote  an  unwarrantable  combination,  to  ex- 
cite and  encourage  an  open  opposition  to,  and  defiance  of, 
the  authority  of  Parliament,  and  to  subvert  the  true  prin- 
ciples of  the  Constitution."  In  April,  letters  were  de- 
spatched to  the  several  Governors  in  America,  directing 
each  to  use  his  utmost  exertions  "  to  defeat  this  flagitious 
attempt  to  disturb  the  public  peace,  by  prevailing  upon  the 
Assembly  of  your  Province  to  take  no  notice  of  it,  which 
will  be  treating  it  with  the  contempt  it  deserves."  f 

Such  was  Lord  Hillsborough's  estimate  of  a  legal  and 
patriotic  attempt  by  Massachusetts  to  obtain  the  unbiassed 
sentiments  of  her  sister  Colonies  on  the  gathering  dangers 
which  menaced  their  liberties.  This  letter  was  written  in 
London  on  the  29th  of  April.  On  the  20th  of  the  same 
month,  Samuel  Adams  had  forwarded  to  the  agent  in  Lon- 

*  Boston  Gazette  for  March  28,  1768. 

t  Lord  Hillsborough's  Circular  Letter,  April  21,  1768. 


180  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Apr.,  May, 

don  the  journals  of  the  House  of  Representatives  for  the 
last  year,  with  the  appendix  containing  the  letters  to  the 
Ministry  and  others  in  full. 

"  The  letters  and  the  appendix,"  he  writes,  "  I  hope  you  have  re- 
ceived ere  now.  I  think  they  contain  the  true  sentiments  and  spirit 
of  this  part  of  the  Province.*  The  manner  and  event  of  their  re- 
ception in  England  is  a  matter  of  great  expectation  here.  I  wish 
that  Great  Britain  may  not  be  deceived  with  regard  to  the  Colonies 
to  her  own  prejudice,  by  the  false,  very  false,  representations  of  her 
and  their  enemies  on  this  side  the  water." 

Those  "false  representations,"  however,  had  been  con- 
stantly going  forward,  and  even  as  he  wrote,  the  plan  for 
the  destruction  of  the  Provincial  Legislature  was  maturing 
in  England.  The  pathetic  and  dutiful  petition  to  the  King 
was  never  officially  presented  by  Lord  Hillsborough,  to 
whom  the  agent  intrusted  it:  but  the  Council  ordered 
Bernard  to  direct  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  to  rescind 
their  Circular  Letter ;  and,  on  their  refusal,  to  immediately 
dissolve  them.  Upon  their  next  choice,  he  was  again  to 
press  the  matter,  and  to  dissolve  them  as  often  as  they  should 
refuse.  To  complete  the  new  system,  General  Gage,  Com- 
mander-in-chief of  his  Majesty's  forces  in  America,  was 
ordered  "to  maintain  the  public  tranquillity."  Tyranny 
seemed  to  culminate  with  this  novel  measure.  The  Colo- 
nists felt  that  the  plan  to  enslave  them  had  been  perfected, 
and  enthusiasts  looked  forward  with  certainty  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  "  the  grand  design  of  God  in  the  settlement  of 
New  England." 

*  When  Hollis  had  these  letters  printed  in  London,  he  gave  them  the  name 
suggested  in  Adams's  letters.     The  pamphlet  has  the  following  title  :  — 

"  The  Trve  Sentiments  of  America :  contained  in  a  Collection  of  Letters 
sent  from  the  Hovse  of  Representatives  of  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay 
to  several  Persons  of  High  Rank  in  this  Kingdom :  together  with  certain  Papers 
relating  to  a  svpposed  Libel  on  the  Governor  of  that  Province,  and  a  Disserta- 
tion on  the  Canon  and  Fevdal  Law.  London,  printed  for  I.  Almon,  in  Picca- 
dilly.    1768."     80.     pp.  158. 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  181 

At  the  town  elections  on  the  4th  of  May,  Cushing,  Ad- 
ams, Hancock,  and  Otis  were  chosen  Representatives  for  the 
ensuing  year. 

On  the  14th  of  this  month,  Mr.  Adams  again  addressed 
the  agent  in  London,  recommending  the  removal  of  Gov- 
ernor Bernard  to  another  government. 

"  I  have  no  reason  to  think,"  he  says,  "  that  a  cordiality  will  ever 
subsist  between  the  present  Governor  and  the  representatives  of 

the  people I  now  speak  my  mind   with  freedom,  and,  I 

hope,  with  candor  and  impartiality The  Board  of  Com- 
missioners are  neglected  by  men  of  fortune  and  character,  and  are 
viewed  in  general  in  no  better  light  than  the  late  commissioners  of 
the  stamps ;  they  appear  to  be  a  very  useless  and  expensive  set  of 
officers,  and  the  arrival  of  their  appendages  from  time  to  time  with 
large  salaries,  together  with  the  many  officers  of  inferior  class  which 
they  have  created  since  they  came  here,  alarm  the  people  with  dis- 
agreeable apprehensions 

"  The  resolution  of  the  Americans,  which  had  its  rise  in  this  town, 
not  to  make  use  of  foreign  superfluities,  I  perceive  by  the  London 
prints  is  disregarded  there  as  a  mere  puff,  because,  upon  inquiry,  it 
was  found  that  the  merchants  had  not  stopped  their  orders  for  such 
kind  of  articles,  and  these  have  the  usual  exportations  to  America 
this  spring.  But  I  wish  that  this  matter  was  considered  with  a  little 
more  attention ;  for,  although  it  is  very  probable  that  many  persons 
may  break  through  their  agreements,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  in  my 
mind  that  such  numbers  will  adhere  to  it  as  will  affect  the  British 
manufacturers.  There  is  certainly  such  a  disposition  among  the 
people  to  furnish  themselves  with  American  manufactures  as  never 
was  known  before ;  and  there  have  been  late  instances  of  the  man- 
ufacture of  a  variety  of  articles  much  beyond  expectation.  It  is 
well  known  what  large  quantities  of  British  manufactures  are  annu- 
ally consumed  in  America.  Could  Great  Britain  endure  a  total  stop 
to  this  consumption  ?  or  what  part  of  it  would  she  be  willing  should 
be  saved  ?  Will  not  the  making  of  one  piece  of  woollen  cloth  encour- 
age the  making  of  another  ?  And  if  this  spirit  of  manufacturing  is 
excited  by  resentment,  as  some  of  your  writers  allege,  is  it  natural 
to  suppose  it  will  stop  short  of  the  utmost  possibility  ?     Can  any 


182  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

man  in  England  or  America  ascertain  the  bounds?     Will  it  not 
affect  the  mother  country  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  it  ? 

"But  there  is  another  consideration  of  great  weight.  Let  the 
importations  from  Great  Britain  be  ever  so  large,  the  trade  of 
America  is  so  embarrassed  and  burdened,  that  it  will  not  afford 
the  people  the  ability  of  wearing  fine  clothes  and  paying  for  them, 
so  that,  in  the  course  of  things,  the  importations  must  cease  through 
necessity.  I  pray  God  that  those  who  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  na- 
tion may  be  endowed  with  true  wisdom ;  that  all  measures  destruc- 
tive to  the  common  interest  may  be  reversed ;  that  fomenters  of 
division  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic  may  be  detected  and  punished ; 
that  Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies  may  thoroughly  understand 
their  mutual  interest  and  dependence  ;  that  harmony  may  be  cul- 
tivated between  them,  and  that  they  may  long  flourish  in  one  undi- 
vided empire."  * 

The  posterity  to  which  the  patriots  so  often  appealed  to 
witness  their  loyalty  to  Great  Britain,  while  loyalty  remained 
a  virtue,  and  to  bear  them  out  in  their  assertions  of  the  jus- 
tice of  their  cause,  need  but  to  consult  this  letter.  A  more 
disinterested  and  sincere  love  of  country  was  never  breathed. 
The  calm  reasoning  which  Deberdt  was  to  exhibit  to  the 
Ministry  was  the  basis,  as  time  eventually  proved,  upon 
which  alone  the  Colonies  might  have  been  preserved  to  Eng- 
land. But  the  genius  of  liberty  was  not  comprehended  by 
the  haughty  statesmen  of  the  mother  country.  The  dis- 
passionate appeals  of  devoted  patriotism,  which  every  true 
Englishman  should  have  been  proud  to  claim  as  coming 
from  fellow-countrymen,  —  rejoicing  with  Pitt  "  that  the 
Americans  had  resisted,"  —  were  regarded  as  the  factious 
efforts  of  a  "  discontented  few,"  who  were  making  conten- 
tion the  stepping-stone  to  some  fancied  personal  preferment. 
The  suggestions  of  Bernard  to  the  Ministry  for  quartering  an 
armed  force  upon  the  people  to  reduce  them  to  obedience 
were  eagerly  listened  to,  and  his  malicious  slanders  adopted 
as  truths. 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Dennys  Deberdt. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  183 

Still  Hutchinson  and  Bernard  continued  their  secret  let- 
ters to  England  for  a  military  force ;  and  these  solicitations 
were  considered  while  Massachusetts,  yet  ignorant  of  the  re- 
ception of  her  appeals  for  justice,  confidently  awaited  a  favor- 
able hearing  of  the  petition  to  the  King.  The  Legislature 
met  on  the  25th,  and  unanimously  elected  Thomas  Cush- 
ing  Speaker,  and  Samuel  Adams  Clerk.  The  usual  sermon 
before  the  Assembly  was  this  year  preached  by  Shute  of 
Hingham,  who  denied  the  absolute  authority  of  Parliament, 
and  justified  resistance  to  laws  not  based  on  equity.  Confi- 
dent in  the  result  of  their  petition  to  his  Majesty,  the  two 
parties  in  the  House  evinced  a  warmer  loyalty  than  had 
been  known  since  the  passage  of  the  revenue  acts,  and, 
on  the  election  of  councillors,  Hutchinson  came  within  three 
votes  of  being  restored  to  that  body.  He  would  have  been 
but  for  Samuel  Adams  and  James  Otis,  who  were  not  to 
be  deceived  by  his  hypocrisy.  Bernard  considered  the  re- 
jection of  the  crown  officers  by  the  House  "  such  a  notori- 
ous instance  of  undutifulness  and  insolence  "  that  he  had 
refused  the  people's  candidates  for  councillors  at  each  elec- 
tion since  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 

"  Your  Lordship,"  he  wrote  to  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough,  "  must 
understand  that  in  New  England  a  different  mode  of  election  prevails 
from  what  is  used  in  Britain.  Here  it  is  not  sufficient  for  a  man  to 
have  a  greater  number  of  votes  than  the  rest  of  the  candidates ;  but 
he  must  also  have  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors.  By 
this  rule  the  Lieutenant-Governor  has  twice  out  of  three  times  lost 
his  election.  In  the  present  case,  in  the  choice  of  the  first  eighteen, 
he  was  the  eighteenth  in  the  order  of  election,  but,  wanting  a  major- 
ity of  three  of  the  whole  electors,  he  was  to  be  put  up  again.  In 
this  interval,  the  two  chief  heads  of  the  faction  (Otis  and  Adams) 
told  the  House  that  the  Lieutenant-Governor  was  a  pensioner  of 
Great  Britain,  and  averred  that  he  had  a  warrant  from  the  Lords 
of  the  Treasury  for  two  hundred  pounds  a  year  out  of  the  new  du- 
ties which  they  were  then  opposing.  This  being  urged  in  a  manner 
which  left  no  opportunity  or  time  for  refutation  or  explanation, 


184  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May,  June,  1768. 

gave  a  turn  against  him,  so  that,  upon  the  second  polling,  he  had  ten 
votes  less  than  before.  This  obliged  his  friends  to  give  up  the 
cause."  * 

What  "  refutation  "  could  have  been  attempted,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see,  since  Hutchinson  soon  after  confessed,  in  a  let- 
ter to  Pownall,  that  "  but  for  the  warrant,  he  would  have 
been  elected."  Had  the  arch  traitor  to  the  liberties  of  his 
country  been  successful  through  this  mistaken  friendship  of 
the  House,  it  would  have  proved  a  dangerous  blow  to  the 
efforts  of  the  few  uncompromising  members,  whose  rule  was, 
never  to  look  back  when  once  the  hand  was  on  the  plough. 

*  Governor  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  May  30, 1768. 


CHAPTER    Till. 

Boston  to  be  subdued.  —  Troops  and  a  Fleet  ordered  to  the  Town.  —  Ex- 
asperation of  the  People.  —  Seizure  of  Hancock's  Sloop  Liberty ;  Excite- 
ment on  the  Wharf.  —  Burning  of  the  Collector's  Boat.  —  The  King  com- 
mands the  Assembly  to  rescind  its  Resolutions  of  the  previous  Session.  — 
They  refuse,  and  adopt  the  Letter  of  Adams  to  Earl  Hillsborough,  assign- 
ing their  Reasons.  —  To  the  same  effect  he  answers  the  Message  of  the 
Governor,  who,  in  obedience  to  Royal  Instructions,  dissolves  the  Assembly. 
—  Aware  of  Bernard's  Misrepresentations  of  the  Province,  they  petition  the 
King  for  his  Removal. 

•  At  last  the  misrepresentations  sent  to  England  by  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Customs,  added  to  those  sent  by  Ber- 

/  nard  and  Hutchinson,  had  the  desired  effect ;  and^in  June, 
./  General  Gage  was  ordered  to  station  a  regiment  permanently 
in  Boston,  while  the  Admiralty  was  directed  to  send  a  frig- 
ate, two  sloops^  and  two  cutters,  to  remain  in  the  harbor,  and 
the  Castle  was  to  be  occupied  and  repaired.  This  was  the 
first  palpable  use  of  force  against  the  Colonists,  and  was 
made  at  a  time  when  they  had  resorted  only  to  passive  re- 
sistance and  peaceable  opposition  by  petitions  and  non-im- 
portation acts,  which  were  manifestly  legal  and  just.  The 
fifty-guii  ship  Romney  arrived  in  May,  at  the  request  of  the 
Commissioners ;  and  her  commander,  Captain  Corner,  im- 
pressed New  England  seamen,  some  of  whom  were  taken 
from  merchant  vessels  at  sea,  on  the  passage  of  the  war-ship 
yrom  Halifax.  The  captain  was  visited  by  a  deputation  of 
the  citizens,  to  represent  the  effect  of  the  outrage ;  and  he 
promised  that  no  one  should  be  pressed,  "belonging  to,  or 

J  who  were  married  in  the  Province,  nor  any  employed  in  the 
*  \  trade  along  the  shore  or  neighboring  Colonies. "  The  sub- 
ject was  also  considered  in  the  House,  soon  after  its  organ- 
ization, where  Mr.  Adams  was  one  of  a  committee  to  prepare 


W' 


186  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

a  written  request  to  the  Governor  for  his  influence  to  obtain 
the  release  of  the  impressed  citizens.  The  rough  draft  of 
this  is  among  the  Adams  papers.  The  desired  relief,  how- 
ever, was  not  given,  and  one  of  the  men  was  rescued  from 
the  hands  of  his  captors.  The  captain,  when  an  offer  of  a 
substitute  was  made,  to  release  another,  stormed  with  anger 
against  the  town.  "  No  man,"  said  he,  "  shall  go  out  of 
this  vessel.  The  town  is  a  blackguard  town,  ruled  by  mobs  : 
they  have  begun  with  me  by  rescuing  a  man  whom  I  pressed 
this  morning ;  and,  by  the  eternal  God,  I  will  make  their 
hearts  ache  before  I  leave  it."  This  was  the  officer  who,  a 
year  and  a  half  before,  was  waited  on  by  a  committee  of  the 
town,  when  he  left  the  station,  to  express  their  appreciation 
of  his  kindness  and  courteous  demeanor  towards  the  people. 
That  committee  was  composed  of  Samuel  Adams,  John 
Rowe,  and  John  Hancock. 

These  events  served  only  to  increase  the  excitement,  and 
/an  opportunity  for  violence  was  soon  offered.  The  sloop 
Liberty,  belonging  to  John  Hancock,  had  lately  arrived 
from  Madeira,  loaded  with  wine.  Her  owner  was  hated  by 
the  crown  officers  for  his  bold  denouncement  of  the  revenue 
acts,  and  his  avowed  enmity  to  the  Commissioners.  For  a 
false  entry,  which  it  was  alleged  had  been  made  several 
weeks  before,  they  resolved  to  seize  the  vessel.  On  the 
evening  of  the  10th  of  June,  when  the  laboring  people,  hav- 
ing quitted  their  work,  were  numerous  in  the  streets,  Harri- 
son the  collector,  and  Hallowell  the  comptroller,  repaired  to 
Hancock's  wharf,  placed  the  sloop  under  the  broad  arrow,  and 
to  prevent  interference  decided  to  moor  her  under  the  guns 
of  the  Romney.  While  signals  were  made  for  that  purpose, 
a  crowd  collected,  among  whom  was  Malcom,  an  importing 
merchant,  who  with  others  recommended  that  the  vessel  be 
allowed  to  remain  at  the  wharf.  An  angry  altercation  en- 
sued, while  the  master  of  the  Romney,  with* a  number  of 
marines,  cut  the  fasts  and  towed  the  sloop  away.  The  mas- 
ter had  threatened  violence,  and  repeatedly,  in  his  anger, 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  187 

ordered  his  men  to  fire  upon  the  people.  The  gathering 
now  increased  to  a  mob,  many  of  whom  did  not  understand 
what  had  taken  place.  Some  imagined  that  the  excitement 
grew  out  of  another  attempt  at  impressment,  and,  becoming 
furious,  followed  the  officers  of  the  customs  as  they  retired, 
pelting  them  with  stones,  bricks,  and  dirt.  They  broke  in 
the  windows  of  the  officers,  "  to  the  value  of  five  pounds," 
much  alarming  the  inmates.* 

Samuel  Adams,  Warren  Hancock,  and  others,  were  mean- 
time deliberating  together  what  was  to  be  done.  It  was 
important  that  the  peaceable  reputation  of  the  town  should 
be  preserved,  in  order  to  keep  the  enemy  in  the  wrong ;  for 
though  the  people  had  long  suffered  under  the  hand  of  tyr- 
anny, and  the  popular  rage  might  well  be  expected  at  times 
to  display  itself,  still  everything  was  to  be  gained  by  contin- 
ued moderation  and  by  keeping  within  legal  bounds.  Fail- 
ing to  find  a  boat  belonging  to  the  Bomney,  the  mob  seized 
that  of  the  collector,  and  having  dragged  it  to  the  Common, 
burned  it  in  triumph.  It  was  falsely  represented  to  the 
Ministry,  in  relation  to  this  affair,  that  the  boat  was  burned 
before  Mr.  Hancock's  house.  To  shield  his  friend  from  any 
vengeance  that  this  might  draw  upon  him,  Mr.  Adams,  in  a 
letter  to  the  agent  in  London,  denies  the  statement. 

u  The  truth  is,"  he  continues,  "  the  barge  was  burnt  on  a  common 
surrounded  with  gentlemen's  seats,  and  the  scene  could  not  be  said 
to  be  before  Mr.  Hancock's  door,  any  more  than  before  the  doors  of 
divers  other  gentlemen  in  the  neighborhood.  The  mean  insinua- 
tion that  it  was  done  under  the  influence  of  Mr.  Hancock  is  so  far 
from  the  least  shadow  of  truth,  that  it  is  notorious  here,  that  the  tu- 
mult was  finally  dispelled  principally  by  his  exertions,  animated  by 
his  known  regard  to  peace  and  good  order."  f 

*  Affidavits  quoted  in  Bancroft,  VI.  155-157. 

t  Bernard,  in  his  account  of  the  affair  to  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough,  says : 
"  Whilst  the  boat  was  burning,  some  gentlemen  who  had  an  influence  over 
them  persuaded  them  to  depart.  This  was  afterwards  put  to  the  vote,  where- 
upon proclamation  was  made,  '  each  man  to  his  tent.'     Before  this,  they  were 


188  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

An  hour  before  midnight  the  crowd  dispersed  at  the 
words,  "  Each  man  to  his  tent,"  which  seems  to  have  been 
a  watchword  between  the  people  and  their  leaders  np  to  the 
commencement  of  the  war. 

This  disturbance  came  a  propos  to  the  Commissioners, 
who  joyfully  construed  it  into  an  insurrection ;  and  several 
of  them,  to  give  the  appearance  of  imminent  danger,  took 
refuge  at  the  Castle  in  the  harbor,  where  they  remained 
some  time. 

"  We  took  shelter,"  say  the  Commissioners,  in  their  letter  * 
to  Commodore  Hood,  "  on  board  his  Majesty's  ship  Kom- 
ney,  and  desired  Captain  Corner  to  put  us  ashore  at  Castle 
William,  where  we  now  are,  and  at  our  request  Captain 
Corner  will  continue  near  the  Castle  for  our  protection." 

This,  however,  deceived  no  one  in  Boston,  and  the  weak 
artifice  was  not  long  afterwards  repented  of  by  the  Com- 
missioners themselves.  Even  General  Gage  admitted  that 
"  dangerous  disturbances  were  not  to  be  apprehended."  f 
It  must  have  been  difficult  indeed  to  construe  the  tumult 
of  a  crowd,  manifestly  under  the  control  of  the  first  gentle- 
men of  the  Province,  into  a  concerted  plan  of  insurrection, 
such  as  the  crown  officers  industriously  represented  it. 

Samuel  Adams  took  every  occasion  to  undeceive  the  Min- 
istry as  to  the  malicious  statements  of  these  men.  In  the 
"  Appeal  to  the  World,"  written  in  the  following  year,  he 


"  It  was,  however,  far  from  being  so  great  a  riot  as  the  Governor 
represents  it  to  be.  The  collector  and  comptroller  of  the  customs 
indeed  represent  it  as  a '  numerous  mob/  but  they  being  particularly 
interested,  their  fears  might  deceive  them.  It  was  not  a  numerous 
mob,  nor  was  it  of  long  continuance,  neither  was  there  much  mis- 
chief done.  It  was  occasioned  by  the  unprecedented  and  unlawful 
manner  of  seizing  a  vessel  by  the  collector  and  comptroller,  and,  con- 
harangued  by  a  leader,  who,  among  others,  used  these  words :  *  We  will  sup- 
port our  liberties,  depending  upon  the  strength  of  our  own  arms  and  God.' " 

*  Seventy  Six  Society's  Massachusetts  Papers,  p.  87. 

t   General  Gage  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  June  17,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  189 

sidering  their  illegal  proceedings  in  making  the  seizure,  attended 
with  the  most  irritating  circumstances,  which  occasioned  this  mob, 
the  intolerably  haughty  behavior  which  the  Commissioners  who 
ordered  this  seizure  had  constantly  before  discovered  towards  the 
people,  the  frequent  threats  which  had  been  given  out  that  the  town 
should  be  put  under  a  military  government,  and  the  armed  force 
actually  employed  as  a  prelude  to  it,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at  that, 
in  a  populous  town,  such  high  provocation  and  the  sudden  exertion 
of  lawless  power,  should  excite  the  resentment  of  some  persons  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  reason,  and  carry  them  into  excess." 

While  the  public  mind  was  at  the  pitch  of  excitement 
from  the  seizure  and  impressment  scenes,  a  placard  was 
posted  about  town,  calling  on  the  Sons  of  Liberty  to  meet 
on  the  following  day  at  "  Liberty  Hall,"  the  name  given  to 
the  space  around  the  "Liberty  Tree,"  —  a  name  hateful  to 
the  Loyalists  for  years  afterwards.  On  account  of  the  rain 
the  meeting  was  adjourned  to  Faneuil  Hall;  but  as  that 
building  could  not  contain  the  crowd  that  assembled,  they 
proceeded  to  the  Old  South,  where  James  Otis,  being  chosen 
moderator,  was  "  ushered  into  the  church  by  an  almost  uni- 
versal clap  of  hands."*  After  fully  debating  the  subject  at 
issue,  the  meeting  was  adjourned  to  the  following  day,  when 
Otis  addressed  the  inhabitants,  strongly  recommending  the 
preservation  of  order,  and  expressing  the  hope  that  their 
grievances  might  in  time  be  removed.  "  If  not,"  he  contin- 
ued, "  and  we  are  called  on  to  defend  our  liberties  and  priv- 
ileges, I  hope  and  believe  we  shall,  one  and  all,  resist  even 
unto  blood;  but  I  pray  God  Almighty  this  may  never  so 
happen." 
— >,  The  result  of  the  first  meeting  had  been  the  appointment 
of  a  committee  of  twenty-one,  Adams  of  course  being  of  the 
Cy '  number,  with  Otis  at  their  head,  and  including  the  names 
of  Warren,  Rowe,  Dana,  Young,  Hancock,  Church,  Tylerr 
and  Quincy,  to  wait  upon  the  Governor.  They  went  in  pro- 
cession, "  in  eleven  chaises,"  to  the  country-seat  of  his  Ex- 

*  Letters  of  Governor  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough. 


190  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

cellency  in  Roxbury,  where  the  address  was  delivered.  It 
asserted  for  the  town  the  right  of  self-taxation,  commented 
upon  the  hated  Board  of  Customs  and  the  late  impressment 
outrages,  and  demanded  the  removal  of  the  Romney  from 
the  harbor.  Hutchinson  says  the  address  was  probably 
drawn  up  or  at  least  approved  by  Otis. 

*  To  contend,"  it  says,  "  with  our  parent  state  is  the  most  shock- 
ing and  dreadful  extremity,  but  tamely  to  relinquish  the  only  secur- 
ity we  and  our  posterity  retain  for  the  enjoyment  of  our  lives  and 
properties,  without  one  struggle,  is  so  humiliating  and  base,  that  we 
cannot  support  the  reflection.  It  is  at  your  option  to  prevent  this 
distressed  and  justly  incensed  people  from  effecting  too  much,  and 
from  the  shame  and  reproach  of  attempting  too  little." 

Bernard  met  the  committee  politely,  but,  on  the  following 
day,  refused  to  remove  the  ship  of  war. 

"  I  received  them,"  thus  he  wrote  soon  after  the  event,  "  with  all 
possible  civility,  and  having  heard  their  petition,  I  talked  very  freely 
with  them  upon  the  subject,  but  postponed  giving  a  formal  answer 
till  the  next  day,  as  it  should  be  in  writing.  I  then  had  wine  handed 
round,  and  they  left  me  highly  pleased  with  their  reception,  espe- 
cially that  part  of  them  which  had  not  been  used  to  an  interview 
with  me."* 

The  Governor's  pride  had  been  wounded  by  his  humiliat- 
ing position ;  and  he  had  no  sooner  delivered  his  reply,  inti- 
mating a  desire  to  effect  a  reconciliation,  than  he  and  all  the 
crown  officers  redoubled  their  efforts  to  obtain  troops,  as- 
serting that  a  rebellion  was  at  hand,  that  a  great  storm  was 
about  to  break,  and  that  the  leaders  of  the  people  would 
urge  them  to  open  revolt.  In  the  meantime  Samuel  Ad- 
ams, Warren,  and  Church  had  been  appointed  by  the  town 
to  draw  up  a  narrative  of  the  late  occurrences,  to  be  trans- 
mitted to  Deberdt,  that  the  Ministry  might  not  be  influenced 
entirely  by  the  misstatements. 

The  usual  instructions  to  the  Boston  Representatives  were 

*  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  June,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  191 

this  year  drawn  up  by  John  Adams,  the  "  young  gentleman 
of  the  law,"  lately  removed  to  Boston  from  Braintree,  whom 
Andrew  Eliot  spoke  of  as  "  likely  to  make  a  shining  figure 
at  the  bar."  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  autobiography,  mentions 
that  "  his  friends  in  Boston  were  very  urgent  with  him  to 
remove  into  town."  Probably  the  most  solicitous  of  these 
friends  was  his  kinsman,  who  took  the  liveliest  interest  in 
his  advancement.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  a  blank  occurs 
in  John  Adams's  diary  for  nearly  the  whole  of  1768,  —  a 
year  when  the  most  interesting  events  of  the  early  Rev- 
olution happened.  He  refers  to  the  offers  which  were  in 
vain  made  to  him  by  the  royal  Governor  to  accept  an  office 
under  the  Crown,  but  no  record  is  found  of  the  struggles  of 
the  patriots  against  the  tightening  gripe  of  tyranny.  The 
instructions  spoke  the  voice  of  the  town :  — 

"  Under  all  these  misfortunes  and  afflictions,  however,  it  is  our 
fixed  resolution  to  maintain  our  loyalty  and  duty  to  our  most  gra- 
cious sovereign,  a  reverence  and  due  subordination  to  the  British 
Parliament,  as  the  supreme  legislative  in  all  cases  of  necessity  for 
the  preservation  of  the  whole  empire,  and  our  cordial  and  sincere 
affection  for  our  parent  country,  and  to  use  our  utmost  endeavor  for 
the  perservation  of  the  peace  and  order  among  ourselves,  waiting 
with  anxious  expectation  for  a  favorable  answer  to  the  petitions  and 
solicitations  of  this  continent  for  relief:  at  the  same  time,  it  is  our 
unalterable  resolution  at  all  times  to  assert  and  vindicate  our  dear 
and  invaluable  rights  and  liberties,  at  the  utmost  hazard  of  our  lives 
and  fortunes ;  and  we  have  a  full  and  rational  confidence  that  no 
designs  formed  against  them  will  ever  prosper."  # 

The  confident  expectation  that  the  last  winter's  petitions 
for  relief  would  meet  with  a  favorable  reception,  as  expressed 
in  the  above  extract,  was  shared  by  nearly  the  whole  Prov- 
ince ;  after  all  that  had  occurred,  the  fatal  reality  had  not 
yet  impressed  itself  upon  the  public  mind.  The  justice  of 
those  appeals  was  so  self-evident,  that  people  were  loath  to 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  490. 


192  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

credit  the  cold-blooded  system  already  pursued  in  Eng- 
land. 

In  less  than  a  week  after  the  adoption  of  John  Adams's 
instructions  by  the  town,  the  news  arrived  that  Massachu- 
setts had  been  ordered  by  the  King  to  rescind  its  resolutions 
of  the  past  winter.  The  Legislature  was  still  in  session,  and, 
on  the  21st  of  June,  the  Governor  transmitted  to  the  House 
the  Earl  of  Hillsborough's  letter  to  him. 

■  And,  therefore,"  so  the  mandate  ran,  "  it  is  the  King's  pleasure, 
that  so  soon  as  the  General  Court  is  again  assembled  at  the  time 
prescribed  by  the  charter,  you  should  require  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, in  his  Majesty's  name,  to  rescind  the  resolution  which 
gave  birth  to  the  Circular  Letter  from  the  Speaker,  and  to  declare 
their  disapprobation  of,  and  dissent  to,  that  rash  and  hasty  proceed- 
ing  And  if,  notwithstanding  the  apprehensions  which  may 

justly  be  entertained  of  the  ill  consequences  of  a  continuance  of  this 
factious  spirit,  which  seems  to  have  influenced  the  resolutions  of  the 
Assembly  at  the  conclusion  of  the  last  session,  the  new  Assembly 
should  refuse  to  comply  with  his  Majesty's  reasonable  expectation, 
it  is  the  King's  pleasure  that  you  should  immediately  dissolve  them, 
and  transmit  to  me,  to  be  laid  before  his  Majesty,  an  account  of 
their  proceedings  thereon." 

A  committee,  including  Samuel  Adams,  was  immediately 
appointed  to  consider  the  Governor's  message,  transmitting 
this  letter,  of  which  his  Excellency  had  at  first  submitted 
only  a  part.*  The  Governor,  who  had  grown  impatient  after 
a  few  days,  sent  a  hasty  message,  to  the  effect  that  he  could 
not  adjourn  the  General  Court  until  he  had  received  their 
answer  to  the  requisition.  The  affair  was  in  suspense  for  a 
week,  and  was  largely  debated.  It  depended  on  them  to 
sustain  by  their  firmness  the  liberties  of  America.  They 
had  deliberately  adopted  the  Circular  Letter  as  the  unaltera- 
ble opinion  of  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts.  The  meas- 
ure had  struck  their  tyrants  with  consternation,  and  won 
the  applause  of  the  entire  continent.     Connecticut,  New 

*  Journal  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  June,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  193 

Jersey,  Georgia,  and  Virginia  had  responded,  —  the  courage 
inspired  by  the  latter  raising  the  hopes  of  all.  Samuel 
Adams,  as  he  reflected  upon  the  immense  importance  of 
Virginia's  co-operation  in  the  measure,  had  had  good  rea- 
son to  regard  the  result  with  satisfaction.  Using  words 
which,  seven  years  later,  he  was  to  repeat  under  still  more 
exciting  circumstances,  he  had  cried,  "This  is  a  glorious 
day ! "  and  his  friend,  the  consistent  and  true  Samuel 
Cooper,  replied,  "  This  is  the  most  glorious  day  ever  seen !  "  * 
Now,  to  retrace  their  steps  would  subject  the  cause  to  ridi- 
cule, and  perhaps  seal  the  fate  of  American  liberty.  Both 
letters  from  Hillsborough  having  been  placed  in  their  hands, 
the  committee  were  ready,  after  mature  deliberation,  on  the 
30th  of  June,  when  the  Speaker  informed  the  House  that 
the  report  was  prepared.  The  galleries  were  cleared,  and 
all  communication  with  the  other  Board  or  from  the  out- 
side was  shut  off  during  the  debate.f  One  could  wish  that 
there  had  been  a  phonographic  reporter  in  that  gallery. 
Here  was  the  Legislature  of  a  Provincial  town,  the  political 
and  commercial  centre  of  New  England,  coolly  bearding  the 
terrible  power  of  Britain,  and  convened  to  consult  upon  the 
question  of  refusing  to  comply  with  a  direct  command  of  the 
King.  The  fiery  and  heated  harangues  of  Otis,  and  the  less 
fervid  and  more  deliberate  reasoning  of  Adams,  were  both 
heard,  and  probably  more  than  one  plain  farmer  from  the 
interior  delivered  his  sentiments.  The  journal  indicates 
simply  that  the  debate  was  secret.  The  first  business  was 
the  consideration  of  a  letter  to  Hillsborough,  written  by  Sam- 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  165. 

t  Journal  of  the  House,  June,  1768.  While  the  doors  were  thus  closed,  a 
committee  from  the  Council  applied  for  admittance  to  ask  the  concurrence  of 
the  House  in  a  series  of  resolutions,  desiring  the  Governor  to  issue  a  proclama- 
tion offering  a  reward  for  the  discovery  of  the  rioters  and  their  abettors  in  the 
late  disturbances,  that  they  might  be  brought  to  condign  punishment.  The 
message  was  not  admitted  ;  and  as  the  House  was  prorogued  on  the  same  day, 
and  dissolved  the  next  day,  no  other  opportunity  occurred  for  presenting  the 
resolutions. 

VOL.    I.  13 


194  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

uel  Adams,  now  vindicating  his  own  measure.  After  being 
twice  read,  it  was  twice  accepted  by  a  vote  of  ninety-two  to 
thirteen,  and  ordered  to  be  fairly  copied  and  forwarded  by 
the  Speaker  to  his  Lordship  at  the  first  opportunity.* 

The  writer  reviews  the  action  of  the  former  House,  giv- 
ing a  succinct  narrative  of  the  circumstances  attending 
the  passage  of  the  Circular  Letter,  and  distinctly  asserting 
that  it  was  the  declared  sense  of  a  large  majority  of  the 
members :  — 

a  It  may  be  necessary  to  observe  that  the  people  in  this  Province 
have  attended  with  a  deep  concern  to  the  several  acts  of  the  British 
Parliament,  which  impose  duties  and  taxes  on  the  Colonies,  not  for 
the  purpose  of  regulating  the  trade,  but  with  the  sole  intention  of 
raising  a  revenue.  This  concern,  my  Lord,  so  far  from  being  limi- 
ted within  the  circle  of  a  few  inconsiderate  persons,  is  become  uni- 
versal. The  most  respectable  for  fortune,  rank,  and  station,  as  well 
as  probity  and  understanding  in  the  Province,  with  very  few  ex- 
ceptions, are  alarmed  with  apprehensions  of  the  fatal  consequences 
of  a  power  exercised  in  any  one  part  of  the  British  empire  to  com- 
mand and  apply  the  property  of  their  fellow-subjects  at  discretion. 
This  consideration  prevailed  on  the  last  House  of  Representatives  to 
resolve  on  a  humble,  dutiful,  and  loyal  petition  to  the  King,  the  com- 
mon head  and  father  of  all  his  people,  for  his  gracious  interposition 
in  favor  of  his  subjects  of  this  Province.  If  your  Lordship,  whom 
his  Majesty  has  honored  with  the  American  department,  has  been 
instrumental  in  presenting  a  petition  so  interesting  to  the  well-be- 
ing of  his  loyal  subjects  here,  this  House  beg  leave  to  make  their 
most  grateful  acknowledgments,  and  to  implore  your  continued  aid 
and  patronage. 

"  As  all  his  Majesty's  North  American  subjects  are  alike  affected 
by  these  parliamentary  revenue  acts,  the  former  House  very  justly 
supposed  that  each  of  the  Assemblies  on  the  continent  would  take  such 
methods  of  obtaining  redress  as  should  be  thought  by  them  respect- 
ively to  be  regular  and  proper.  And  being  desirous  that  the  several 
applications  should  harmonize  with  each  other,  they  resolved  on  their 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  June,  1768.  Bancroft,  VI.  165.  Eliot's  N.  E.  Biog. 
Dictionary. 


1768.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  195 

Circular  Letter,  wherein  their  only  view  seems  to  be,  to  advertise 
their  sister  Colonies  of  the  measures  they  had  taken  upon  a  common 
and  important  concern,  without  once  calling  upon  them  to  adopt 
those  measures  or  any  other. 

"  Your  Lordship  surely  will  not  think  it  a  crime  in  that  House  to 
have  taken  a  step  which  was  perfectly  consistent  with  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  had  a  natural  tendency  to  compose  the  minds  of  his  Maj- 
esty's subjects  of  this  and  his  other  Colonies,  until,  in  his  royal 
clemency  he  should  afford  them  relief,  at  a  time  when  it  seemed  to 
be  the  evident  design  of  a  party  to  prevent  calm,  deliberate,  rational, 
and  constitutional  measures  from  being  pursued  ;  or  to  stop  the  dis- 
tresses of  the  people  from  reaching  his  Majesty's  ear,  and,  conse- 
quently, to  precipitate  them  into  a  state  of  desperation  and  melancholy 
extremity. 

u  And  the  House  humbly  rely  on  the  royal  clemency,  that  to  pe- 
tition his  Majesty  will  not  be  deemed  by  him  to  be  inconsistent  with 
a  respect  to  the  British  Constitution,  as  settled  at  the  Revolution 
by  William  the  Third :  that  to  acquaint  their  fellow-subjects,  in- 
volved in  the  same  distress,  of  their  having  so  done,  in  full  hopes 
of  success,  even  if  they  had  invited  the  union  of  all  America  in  one 
joint  supplication,  would  not  be  discountenanced  by  our  gracious 
sovereign  as  a  measure  of  an  inflammatory  nature."  * 

The  letter  was  sent  by  the  first  conveyance.  Much  curi- 
osity was  felt  to  know  its  contents,  as  none  but  members  of 
the  House  had  heard  it  read.  Bernard  shared  this  curios- 
ity, as  appears  by  a  letter  to  Hillsborough.  Mr.  Adams 
withheld  it  from  publication  as  long  as  he  considered  that 
the  public  interests  were  subserved  by  so  doing ;  then  he 
resolved  to  have  it  printed  in  the  Boston  Gazette.  Bernard 
thus  relates  a  scene  reported  to  him  :  — 

"I  informed  your  Lordship  that  I  had  not  seen,  nor  probably 
should  see,  till  it  is  printed,  the  letter  of  the  House  to  your  Lord- 
ship, although,  I  am  informed,  I  am  much  interested  in  the  contents 
of  it.  But  I  shall  soon  have  that  satisfaction,  being  informed  it  is 
to  be  printed  next  Monday.     It  seems  that  this  morning  the  two 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  151. 


196  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

consuls  of  the  faction — Otis  and  Adams  —  had  a  dispute  upon  it 
in  the  Representatives'  room,  where  the  papers  of  the  House  are 
kept,  which  I  shall  write  as  a  dialogue  to  save  paper :  — 

"  Otis.  —  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  letter  to  Lord  Hills- 
borough ? 

11  Adams.  —  To  give  it  to  the  printer  to  publish  next  Monday. 

"  Otis.  —  Do  you  think  it  proper  to  publish  it  so  soon,  that  he  may 
receive  a  printed  copy  before  the  original  comes  to  his  hand  ? 

11  Adams.  —  What  signifies  that  ?  You  know  it  was  designed  for 
the  people,  and  not  for  the  minister. 

"  Otis.  —  You  are  so  fond  of  your  own  drafts  that  you  can't  wait 
for  the  publication  of  them  to  a  proper  time. 

"Adams.  —  I  am  Clerk  of  this  House,  and  I  will  make  that  use 
of  the  papers  which  I  please. 

"  I  had  this  "  continues  the  Governor,  "  from  a  gentleman  of  the 
first  rank,  who  I  understood  was  present."  * 

On  the  same  day  with  the  adoption  of  the  letter,  the  great 
/"  question,  whether,  in  obedience  to  the  royal  mandate,  the 
House  would  rescind  the  resolution  which  gave  birth  to 
their  Circular  Letter,  came  up  and  was  decided  in  the  neg- 
ative by  a  vote  of  ninety-two  to  seventeen.  The  votes  were 
by  word  of  mouth,  and  stand  recorded,  name  by  name,  in 
the  journals  and  in  the  next  Boston  Gazette. 

Again  employing  the  pen  of  Samuel  Adams,  the  House 
replied  to  the  Governor's  message  on  the  opening  of  the  ses- 
sion. The  answer  was  "  twice  read  and  accepted  by  a  great 
majority. " 

"  We  cannot  but  express  our  deep  concern,  that  a  measure  of  the 
late  House,  in  all  respects  so  innocent,  in  most  so  virtuous  and  laud- 
able, and,  as  we  conceive,  so  truly  patriotic,  should  have  been  repre- 
sented to  administration  in  the  odious  light  of  a  party  and  factious 
measure,  and  that  pushed  through  by  reverting  in  a  thin  house  to, 
and  reconsidering,  what  in  a  full  Assembly  had  been  rejected.  It 
was  and  is  a  matter  of  notoriety,  that  more  than  eighty  members 

*  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  July  9,  1768.  The  letter  of  the  House 
was  published  in  the  Boston  Gazette  of  July  18,  1768. 


1768. 


LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  197 


were  present  at  the  reconsideration  of  the  vote  against  application 
to  the  other  Colonies. 

"  The  Circular  Letters  have  been  sent,  and  many  of  them  have 
been  answered ;  those  answers  are  now  in  the  public  papers ;  the 
public,  the  world,  must  and  will  judge  of  the  proposals,  purposes, 
and  answers.  We  could  as  well  rescind  those  letters  as  the  re- 
solves ;  and  both  would  be  equally  fruitless  if,  by  rescinding,  as  the 
word  properly  imports,  is  meant  a  repeal  and  nullifying  the  resolu- 
tion referred  to. 

"  You  have  also  thought  fit  to  inform  us  that  you  cannot  think 
yourself  at  liberty,  in  case  of  the  dissolution  of  this,  to  call  another 
Assembly  without  the  express  orders  of  his  Majesty  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  your  Excellency  has  been  pleased  to 
assure  us  that  you  have  communicated  the  whole  of  Lord  Hillsbor- 
ough's letter  and  your  instructions,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  requisi- 
tion. In  all  this,  however,  we  cannot  find  that  your  Excellency  is 
more  than  directed  to  dissolve  the  present  Assembly  in  case  of  a 
non-compliance  on  the  part  of  the  House.  If  the  votes  of  the 
House  are  to  be  controlled  by  the  direction  of  a  minister,  we  have 
left  us  but  a  vain  semblance  of  liberty."  * 

^The  success  of  this  noble  stand  of  a  little  province  against 
the  authority  of  Great  Britain,  involving  as  it  did  a  practi- 
cal illustration  of  the  power  of  the  Colonies  united,  was  for 
years  afterwards  a  source  of  keen  pleasure  to  Mr.  Adams. 
He  occasionally  refers  to  it  in  his  political  writings  there- 
after, to  animate  his  countrymen  in  the  great  struggle.  In 
September,  1771,  he  devotes  a  large  space  in  the  public 
press  to  a  graphic  narrative  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Legis- 
lature in  regard  to  the  Circular  Letter,  when,  he  says,  the 
House  was  actuated  "by  a  conscientious  and  a  clear  and 
determined  sense  of  duty  to  God,  their  King,  their  country, 
and  their  latest  posterity.! 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  147. 

t  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  16,  1771. 


198  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [July, 

"  This  determination  of  the  House  gave  general  satisfaction,  not 
only  to  the  people  of  this  Province,  but  of  the  other  Colonies  also, 
as  well  as  the  friends  of  liberty  in  Britain.  It  was  spoken  of  by  all, 
except  the  disappointed  few,  with  great  applause.  Indeed,  the 
essential  rights  of  all  were  involved  in  the  question.  A  different 
determination  would  therefore  have  been  to  the  last  degree  infa- 
mous, and  attended  with  fatal  consequences.  Not  only  the  right  of 
the  subjects  jointly  to  petition  for  the  redress  of  grievances,  which 
all  alike  suffer,  but  also  that  of  communicating  their  sentiments  freely 
to  each  other  upon -the  subject  of  grievances  and  the  means  of  re- 
dress, which  was  the  sole  purport  of  the  Circular  Letter,  would  in 
effect  have  been  given  up.  I  have  often  thought  that,  in  this  time 
of  common  distress,  it  would  be  the  wisdom  of  the  Colonists  more 
frequently  to  correspond  with,  and  to  be  more  attentive  to,  the  par- 
ticular circumstances  of  each  other.  It  seems  of  late  to  have  been 
the  policy  of  the  enemies  of  America  to  point  their  artillery  against 
one  Province  only,  and  artfully  to  draw  off  the  attention  of  the 
other  Colonies,  and,  if  possible,  to  render  that  single  Province  odi- 
ous to  them,  while  it  is  suffering  ministerial  vengeance  for  the  sake 
of  the  common  cause.  But  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Colonies  will 
be  aware  of  this  artifice.  At  this  juncture,  an  attempt  to  subdue 
one  Province  to  despotic  power  is  justly  to  be  considered  as  an  at- 
tempt to  enslave  the  whole.  The  Colonies  'form  one  political 
body,  of  which  each  is  a  member.'  The  liberties  of  the  whole  are 
invaded.  It  is,  therefore,  the  interest  of  the  whole  to  support  each 
individual  with  all  their  weight  and  influence." 

In  obedience  to  the  royal  mandate,  the  Governor  pro- 
rogued the  House  on  the  day  of  their  refusal  to  rescind,  but 
not  before  they  had  appointed  a  committee  to  prepare  a  pe- 
tition to  the  King,  "  praying  that  his  Majesty  would  be  gra- 
ciously pleased  to  remove  his  Excellency,  Francis  Bernard, 
Esq.,  from  the  government  of  the  Province." 


CHAPTER   IX. 

Massachusetts  applauded  for  her  Firmness.  —  The  Province  still  Loyal.  — 
Boston  in  1768.  —  Its  Forms  of  Worship.  —  Right  of  Suffrage.  —  Common 
School  System.  —  Industry.  —  Samuel  Adams  among  the  Mechanics.  — 
His  Democratic  Tendencies.  —  His  great  Influence.  —  His  Capacity  for 
Work.  —  Anniversary  of  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Joseph  Warren,  his  Talents 
and  Popularity.  —  Adams  sees  the  Necessity  of  Independence.  —  Affidavits 
taken  against  him  and  forwarded  by  the  Governor  to  the  Ministry.  —  Otis, 
Adams,  and  Warren  mature  their  Plans.  —  Town  Meeting  in  expectation  of 
the  Troops.  —  The  Governor  still  refusing  to  assemble  the  Legislature,  a 
Convention  of  Delegates  from  the  Towns  is  called  by  popular  Voice.  — 
Proceedings  of  the  Convention. — Its  Objects  accomplished. — Arrival  of 
the  Troops. 

Massachusetts  was  now  without  a  Legislature,  and  as 
fully  the  victim  of  tyranny  as  the  subjects  of  the  most  abso- 
lute despot  in  Europe.  How  long  this  was  to  continue  was  left 
to  conjecture.  It  had  been  resolved  by  the  Ministry  that 
the  Governor  should  dissolve  the  Assembly  as  often  as  it 
should  refuse  to  rescind  the  obnoxious  resolution.  From 
the  other  Colonies  came  expressions  of  sympathy  with  the 
people  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  act  of  arbitrary  power  had 
exactly  the  opposite  effect  to  that  intended.  The  necessity 
of  a  union  of  interests  for  a  common  cause  was  seen,  and  the 
refusal  to  rescind  was  everywhere  applauded.  It  was  indeed 
an  extraordinary  spectacle.  No  act  of  rebellion  had  taken 
place ;  no  insurrection  existed ;  the  feeling  of  loyalty  was 
yet  firm  among  the  people.  They  had  but  peaceably  and 
legally  asserted  their  charter  and  constitutional  liberties. 

Boston,  at  this  time,  contained  about  sixteen  thousand 
inhabitants,  and,  as  regards  its  local  system,  was  the  most 
orderly  and  best  governed  town  in  the  world.  In  whatever 
light  it  is  viewed,  even  now  when  moral  and  intellectual  ap- 
pliances have  wonderfully  advanced  the  means  of  human 


200  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[July, 


improvement,  the  capital  of  New  England,  as  it  then  existed, 
must  be  regarded  as  a  model.  It  was  a  little  democracy  or 
republic  within  itself,  based  upon  the  traditional  and  natural 
rights  guaranteed  to  its  founders  in  the  previous  century, 
who  had  fled  from  religious  persecution  to  the  wilds  of  the 
Western  world  for  the  enjoyment  of  "  freedom  to  worship 
God." 

The  form  of  church  government  of  the  great  majority  was 
the  congregational,  each  church  being  supported  by  the  vol- 
untary contributions  of  its  members ;  while  the  opinion  re- 
mained unaltered,  as  of  old,  that  each  was  independent  and 
in  no  way  under  the  control  of  any  other.  Popery  and  sla- 
very were  nearly  synonymous  terms  with  them,  and  though 
the  Church  of  England  was  represented  in  the  town  they  still 
opposed  prelacy,  and  were  against  the  establishment  of  a  Prot- 
estant episcopacy  in  the  Colonies.  "  The  revenue  raised  in 
America,  for  aught  we  can  tell,"  said  the  House  in  their  letter 
to  Deberdt,  already  quoted,  "  may  be  as  constitutionally  ap- 
plied towards  the  support  of  prelacy,  as  of  soldiers  and  pen- 
sioners ";  and  they  considered  it  as  "  alarming  to  a  people 
whose  fathers,  from  the  hardships  they  suffered  under  such  an 
establishment,  were  obliged  to  fly  their  native  country  into  a 

wilderness We  hope  in  God  such  an  establishment 

will  never  take  place  in  America."  * 

No  Roman  Catholic  church  or  congregation  existed  in  the 
town,  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  papists  being  regarded  as 
the  pitiable  and  worn-out  superstitions  of  the  ignorant. 
The  people  were  rigid  in  the  performance  of  religious  re- 
quirements, which  had  descended  in  their  original  strictness 
from  the  early  settlers ;  and  the  ministers  disseminated  the 
principles  of  morality  and  liberty  as  equally  important, — 
the  Old  South,  the  largest  church  in  the  town,  being  often 
the  scene  of  the  most  exciting  demonstrations  of  the  people 
in  the  support  of  their  rights. 

The  right  of  suffrage,  though  involving  a  small  property 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  132. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  201 

qualification,  was  only  sufficiently  exclusive  to  produce  a 
laudable  ambition  for  the  acquirement  of  the  requisite  pos- 
sessions. Faneuil  Hall  was  the  political  head-quarters  where 
the  principles  of  liberty  were  freely  debated,  and  there  free- 
dom of  thought  and  speech  was  never  questioned. 

A  carefully  guarded  common-school  system  gave  the  ben- 
efit of  a  practical  education  to  all.  The  schools  were  opened 
each  day  with  public  prayer,  and  were  under  the  immediate 
control  of  the  selectmen,  who  visited  them  once  a  year,  gen- 
erally in  June,  in  company  with  a  committee  of  the  princi- 
pal gentlemen  of  the  town,  and  a  number  of  ministers.  In 
these  schools,  the  apostles  equally  of  religion  and  liberty, 
Mayhew,  Chauncy,  and  Cooper,  and  the  phalanx  of  patri- 
ots, the  Adamses,  Otis,  Warren,  Hancock,  Cushing,  and 
the  rest,  received  the  germs  of  liberal  culture  which,  devel- 
oped at  Harvard  College,  enabled  them  to  establish  the  lib- 
erties of  their  country. 

There  has  probably  never  been  in  the  history  of  man  an 
instance  of  a  more  perfect  democracy,  of  a  society  where  the 
rights  of  the  lower  classes  were  more  jealously  observed. 
It  was  a  society  where  no  titled  aristocracy  was-  acknowl- 
edged,—  where  sturdy  personal  independence  had  never 
known  any  other  honors  than  those  cheerfully  accorded  to 
worth  and  talents.  The  royal  governors  alone  had  some- 
times worn  aristocratic  distinctions  as  representatives  of  the 
King,  but  the  towns'  people  would  ill  have  tolerated  among 
themselves  the  badges  of  a  superior  class.  The  working- 
men,  especially  the  ship-building  mechanics,  who  were  the 
most  numerous  among  the  inhabitants,  and  who  excelled 
the  whole  world  in  their  skill,  loved  the  honest  equality 
insured  by  good  citizenship,  and  yet,  with  no  levelling 
schemes,  regarded  without  jealousy  the  well-earned  wealth 
of  the  few  opulent  citizens  whose  circumstances  gave  them 
social  prominence. 

In  the  shipyards,  where  the  real  popular  power  resided, 
Samuel  Adams  was  especially  the  favorite  from  among  the 


202  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

champions  of  the  public  liberties.  He  found  the  people 
willing  listeners  and  converts  to  his  doctrines,  and,  as  a  most 
perfect  embodiment  of  the  democratic  theory,  he  exercised 
more  influence  with  them  than  any  other  man.  His  good 
judgment  was  often  appealed  to,  and,  in  many  instances, 
lawsuits  were  avoided  by  making  him  the  umpire.  They 
placed  the  most  implicit  confidence  in  him  as  a  man  and  a 
patriot,  and  he  never  deceived  them.  No  man  could  less 
brook  than  he  the  insolence  of  arbitrary  power  and  the  over- 
bearing manners  of  the  crown  officers  towards  the  common 
people,  among  whom  he  desired  always  to  instil  a  conscious- 
ness of  superiority  over  those  minions  of  tyranny,  believing 
that  with  such  sentiments  was  connected  the  successful  as- 
sertion of  their  liberties.  His  first  public  writings  reveal  this 
idea,  when  he  inveighs  against  the  aspiring  few  who  would 
"  despise  their  neighbor's  happiness,  because  he  wears  a 
worsted  cap  or  leathern  apron";  and,  to  his  latest  days,  his 
•sympathies  were  with  the  poor  and  the  lowly.  Samuel 
Adams,  during  all  his  life,  was  their  tribune.  He  was  the 
true  "  Father  of  Democracy  "  in  America,  whose  voice  and 
pen  were  ever  employed  for  the  common  people  ;  and  he  la- 
bored to  build  up  American  liberty,  not  only  by  public 
measures,  but  by  cultivating  an  individual  independence  of 
thought  among  the  working-classes  as  the  true  basis  of  na- 
tional freedom.  Careless  of  personal  gain,  he  seemed  to 
have  been  specially  ordained  for  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 
Frugal  and  temperate  in  his  habits,  his  wants  were  few,  and 
his  powers  of  endurance  fitted  him  for  ceaseless  industry. 
Most  of  his  public  papers  were  written  in  a  study  or  library 
adjoining  his  bedroom  ;  and  his  wife,  after  his  death,  related 
how,  in  the  stillness  of  the  night,  she  used,  in  the  Revolution- 
ary times,  to  listen  to  the  incessant  motion  of  the  pen  in  the 
next  room,  whence  the  solitary  lamp,  which  lighted  the  pa- 
triot in  his  labors,  was  dimly  visible.  Mr.  Joseph  Pierce, 
who  personally  knew  Samuel  Adams,  and  whose  business 
obliged  him  for  a  long  time  to  pass  after  midnight  by  the 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  203 

house,  related,  early  in  the  present  century,  that  he  seldom 
failed  to  see  the  study  lighted,  no  matter  how  far  the  night 
was  gone,  "  and  he  knew  that  Sam  Adams  was  hard  at  work 
writing  against  the  Tories.' ' 

The  Sons  of  Liberty  celebrated  the  third  anniversary  of 
the  outbreak  against  the  Stamp  Act  this  year  with  extraor- 
dinary festivity.  The  14th  of  August  falling  on  Sunday, 
the  celebration  was  postponed  until  the  next  day.  The 
account  in  the  Boston  Gazette  says :  — 

"At  the  dawn  the  British  flag  was  displayed  on  the  Tree  of  Lib- 
erty, and  a  discharge  of  fourteen  cannon  ranged  under  the  venerable 
elm  saluted  the  joyous  day.  At  eleven  o'clock  a  very  large  company 
of  the  principal  gentlemen  and  respectable  inhabitants  of  the  town 
met  at  the  Hall  under  the  tree,  while  the  streets  were  crowded  with 
a  concourse  of  people  of  all  ranks,  public  notice  having  been  given 
of  the  intended  celebration.  The  music  began  at  high  noon,  per- 
formed on  various  instruments,  joined  with  voices,  and  concluding 
with  the  universally  admired  American  Song  of  Liberty.  The 
grandeur  of  its  sentiment,  and  the  easy  flow  of  its  numbers,  together 
with  an  exquisite  harmony  of  sound,  afforded  sublime  entertainment 
to  a  numerous  audience  fraught  with  a  noble  ardor  in  the  cause  of 
freedom.  The  song  was  closed  with  the  discharge  of  cannon  and  a 
shout  of  joy ;  at  the  same  time,  the  windows  of  the  neighboring 
houses  were  adorned  with  a  brilliant  appearance  of  the  fair  daughters 
of  liberty,  who  testified  their  approbation  by  smiles  of  satisfaction." 

Among  the  fourteen  toasts  given  were  "  The  memorable 
14th  of  August,  1765,"  "  The  Farmer,"  "  John  Wilkes," 
"  The  glorious  Ninety-two  "  (non-rescinders),  "  Pascal  Paoli 
and  his  brave  Corsicans,"  and  "  Magna  Charta  and  the  Bill 
of  Rights  "  ;  — 

"Which  being  finished,"  continues  the  Gazette,  "the  French 
horns  sounded  ;  and  after  another  discharge  of  the  cannon,  complet- 
ing the  number  ninety-Two,  the  gentlemen,  in  their  carriages,  re- 
paired to  the  Greyhound  Tavern  in  Roxbury,  where  a  frugal  and 
elegant  entertainment  was  provided.  The  music  played  during  the 
repast,"  and  forty-five  patriotic  toasts  were  drunk. 


204  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

"Upon  this  happy  occasion,  the  whole  company,  with  the  appro- 
bation of  their  brethren  in  Roxbury,  consecrated  a  tree  in  the 
vicinity,  under  the  shade  of  which,  on  some  future  anniversary,  they 
may  commemorate  the  day  which  shall  liberate  America  from  her 
present  oppression.  Then,  making  an  agreeable  excursion  round 
Jamaica  Pond,  in  which  excursion  they  received  the  kind  salutation 
of  a  friend  to  the  cause  by  the  discharge  of  cannon,  at  six  o'clock 
they  returned  to  town,  and  passing  in  slow  and  orderly  procession 
through  the  principal  streets  and  round  the  State  House,  they  re- 
tired to  their  respective  dwellings.  It  is  allowed  that  this  caval- 
cade surpassed  all  that  has  ever  been  seen  in  America.  The  joy 
of  the  day  was  manly,  and  uninterrupted  regularity  presided  through 
the  whole."  * 

These  annual  celebrations  were  held  at  the  suggestion 
principally  of  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams,  who,  with  the  other 
leaders,  were  always  personally  present.  The  general  plan 
was  to  have  a  gala  day  in  town  until  about  noon,  and  then 
to  complete  the  festivities  by  a  barbecue  at  some  noted  tav- 
ern in  the  environs,  whose  proprietor  was  known  to  be 
friendly  to  the  cause.  After  the  present  year,  this  celebra- 
tion was  superseded  by  the  more  solemn  ceremonial  of  the 
anniversary  of  the  Boston  Massacre. f 

At  this  time  the  political  writings  of  Dr.  Joseph  Warren 
had  attracted  public  attention.  From  the  first  evidence 
of  the  distinguished  ability  of  Warren,  Samuel  Adams  had 
determined,  in  conformity  with  his  unvarying  practice  where 
genius  displayed  itself,  to  engage  his  talents  and  enlist  his 
sympathies  in  favor  of  his  native  country.  Judging  from 
the  declarations  of  John  Adams,  in  relation  to  this  subject, 
Warren's  first  efforts  in  the  public  cause  were  made  through 
the  influence  of  "  the  Father  of  the  Revolution."  Not  that 
the  generous  spirit  and  noble  genius  of  Warren  needed  to 
be  spurred  to  maintain  the  great  cause  of  human  liberty, 
but  Adams  was  twenty  years  the  senior  of  Warren,  who  was 

*  For  an  account  of  the  celebration,  see  Boston  Gazette  of  Aug.  22,  1768. 
t  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  218). 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  205 

but  twenty-four  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
and  to  him  the  veteran  leader  might  well  act  as  a  guide  and 
a  friend.  They  were  most  intimate  until  the  glorious  death 
of  Warren,  in  1775.  They  labored  together,  and,  after  the 
present  year,  no  man  in  Massachusetts  so  fully  enjoyed  the 
confidence  of  Adams  in  all  political  measures  as  Warren. 
As  early  as  1766,  the  young  statesman  had  expressed  his 
views  in  his  private  letters.  He  comprehended  the  force  of 
the  great  truth,  that  American  society  exhibited  a  more 
equal  division  of  property  than  existed  in  the  old  country ; 
he  saw  how  this  tended  to  an  equality  of  influence  and  au- 
thority. 

"  Until  now,"  Warren  said,  "  the  Colonies  were  ever  at  variance 
and  foolishly  jealous  of  each  other ;  but  this  Stamp  Act  has  brought 
about  what  the  Colonies  could  never  have  expected  to  have  brought 
about.  They  are  now  united  for  common  defence  against  what 
they  believe  to  be  oppressors.  Nor  will  they  soon  forget  the  weight 
which  the  union  gives  them.  Does  not  all  history  teach  that  the 
strength  of  a  country  depends  on  being  united?  But  was  it  the 
object  to  force  the  Colonies  into  the  path  of  rebellion,  and  then  by 
military  power  to  reduce  them  to  the  state  of  servitude  ?  Let  it  be 
considered,  that  every  power  in  Europe  looks  with  envy  on  the  Col- 
onies which  Great  Britain  enjoys  in  America.  He  must  be  igno- 
rant of  human  nature  who  does  not  know,  that  when  the  rage  of  a 
people  is  raised  by  oppression  to  such  a  height  as  to  break  out  in 
rebellion,  any  new  alliance  is  preferable  to  the  miseries  which  a 
conquered  country  must  necessarily  expect.  Would  no  power  in 
Europe  take  advantage  of  such  an  occasion,  and  tempt  such  an  alli- 
ance? Will  politic  and  powerful  France  be  restrained  by  treaties 
to  recover  so  fair  a  portion  of  their  ancient  possessions." 

These  views  were  as  sound  in  theory  as  those  of  the  old- 
est patriots  in  the  Province.  So  ripe  a  judgment,  allied  to 
such  brilliant  talents,  found  a  friend  and  kindred  spirit  in 
Adams.  But  Warren  was  only  one  of  the  many  young  men 
whom  Adams  led  into  the  arena  of  patriotism.  He  was  con- 
stantly on  the  alert  to  bring  out  such  characters,  and  train 


208  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

them  for  the  great  purpose  of  liberty.  Truly  was  he  called 
the  "  pilot "  of  the  times,  and  the  "  director"  of  the  public 
affairs.  His  guiding  influence  in  the  Legislature  we  have 
already  seen  in  the  important  measures  originated  and  con- 
summated by  him.  Going  back  a  couple  of  years  to  the 
time  of  the  Stamp  Act,  we  find  an  interesting  and  eloquent 
allusion  to  his  greatness  at  that  crisis  and  thenceforward  in 
the  funeral  discourse  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Thacher,  in  which  he 
gave  a  truthful  sketch  of  Samuel  Adams,  collected  from  the 
statements  of  his  fellow-patriots,  who  still  survived  in  1803, 
and  who  had  intimately  known  his  political  course  from  the 
commencement  of  the  Revolution.  After  alluding  to  Mr. 
Adams's  career  as  a  legislator,  the  writer  continues :  — 

"  Truly  difficult  and  responsible  was  the  duty  of  a  pilot  called  to 
steer  in  so  violent  a  tempest!  Such,  however,  was  the  skill  and 
dexterity  discovered  by  our  departed  friend,  that  even  the  favorable 
and  flattering  opinion  which  his  fellow-citizens  had  formed  was  ex- 
ceeded by  the  ability  he  displayed  in  directing  their  affairs.  He 
became  at  once  the  most  influential  member  of  the  Legislature. 
He  was  the  soul  that  animated  that  respected  body  to  their  most 
important  resolutions  and  to  their  unequivocal  opposition  to  every 
unjust  claim  and  innovation  made  by  the  corrupt  ministers  of  Great 
Britain.  In  cases  where  other  great  and  good  men  were  perplexed 
and  apprehensive  that  this  ardor  for  liberty  would  hasten,  not  de- 
feat, the  design  of  despotism,  this  illustrious  patriot  remained  undis- 
mayed. Aut  Ccesar  aut  nullus,  was  his  maxim.  He  wished  either 
to  see  his  country  completely  emancipated  from  every  unjust,  uncon- 
stitutional claim,  or  else  that  it  might  become  the  common  sepul- 
chre of  its  inhabitants.  For  slavery  and  dependence  he  abhorred, 
even  in  their  mildest  and  most  polished  form." 

The  town  which  we  have  described,  and  the  class  of  char- 
acters to  which  a  brief  allusion  has  been  made,  the  British 
Ministry,  in  whom  anger  had  usurped  the  place  of  rea- 
son, were  now  determined  to  crush.  The  exaggerated 
statements  of  the  recent  occurrences  had  been  received 
in  England,  and  "  vengeance "   was  denounced  "  against 


1768.] 


LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  207 


that  insolent  town."  Any  modification  or  repeal  of  the 
infamous  and  oppressive  revenue  acts  was  scouted  at.  In 
the  Council,  the  petitions  had  no  effect  but  to  increase  the 
insane  rigor  against  the  Colonies,  and  it  was  decided  to  use 
force  to  subdue  the  inhabitants  of  Boston.  The  most  sedi- 
tious were  to  be  made  an  example  to  strike  terror  into  the 
other  Colonies ;  for  which  purpose  Hillsborough,  far  from 
being  moved  by  the  logical  and  respectful  address  of  the 
House,  now  sent  over  orders  to  inquire  a  if  any  persons  had 
committed  acts  which,  under  the  authority  of  the  statute 
of  Henry  the  Eighth  against  treason  committed  abroad, 
might  justify  their  being  brought  to  England  for  trial." 
The  ancient  and  legal  town  meetings  were  to  be  terminated. 
Two  regiments  and  a  frigate  were  at  once  to  be  sent  to 
Boston. 

It  was  now  that  Samuel  Adams  became  convinced  that 
(  the  harsh  policy  of  Great  Britain  was  unalterable.  An 
army  and  fleet  were  on  the  way  to  enforce  the  despotic 
measures  of  Parliament.  Petitions  and  humble  protesta- 
tions had  been  met  only  with  contempt  and  renewed  tyr- 
anny. These  things  had  led  the  patriot  slowly  and  deliber- 
ately to  the  conclusion  that  American  independence  was  a 
political  and  natural  necessity.  He  admitted  to  a  friend,  in 
1775,  that  from  this  moment  he  struggled  unremittingly  for 
the  accomplishment  of  that  object,  which  absorbed  his  soul 
for  eight  years,  until  the  great  charter  of  human  liberties 
was  signed.  A  plain  narrative  of  his  career,  up  to  that  im- 
mortal event,  will  reveal  that  no  one  of  the  galaxy  of  Revolu- 
tionary characters  wrought  so  much  in  attaining  that  end  as 
Samuel  Adams.  {Fully  aware  of  the  agency  of  the  Governor 
and  other  royal  pensioners  in  bringing  an  armed  force  upon 
the  Province,  he  took  up  the  subject  of  the  public  griev- 
ances in  the  Boston  Gazette,  immediately  after  his  Excel- 
lency's proclamation  treating  of  the  "  tumultuous  "  condi- 
tion of  affairs.  The  misrepresentations  had  been  received 
in  Halifax,  and  Boston  was  commonly  supposed  there  to  be 


208  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [Aug. 

in  a  state  of  insurrection.  "If  these  falsehoods,' -  says 
Adams, "  make  such  impressions  on  the  minds  of  persons  so 
near  us  as  Halifax,  it  cannot  be  wondered  at  if  the  mother 
country,  at  the  distance  of  a  thousand  leagues,  should  think 
we  are  in  a  state  of  confusion." 

"  When  the  people  are  oppressed,  when  their  rights  are  infringed, 
when  their  property  is  invaded,  when  taskmasters  are  set  over  them, 
when  unconstitutional  acts  are  executed  by  a  naval  force  before  their 
eyes,  and  they  are  daily  threatened  with  military  troops,  when  their 
Legislative  is  dissolved !  and  what  government  is  left  is  as  secret  as 
a  Divan,  when  placemen  and  their  underlings  swarm  about  them, 
and  pensioners  begin  to  make  an  insolent  appearance,  —  in  such 
circumstances  the  people  will  be  discontented ;  and  they  are  not  to 
be  blamed ;  their  minds  will  be  irritated  as  long  as  they  have  any 
sense  of  honor,  liberty,  and  virtue.  In  such  circumstances,  while 
they  have  the  spirit  of  freemen,  they  will  boldly  assert  their  freedom ; 
and  they  are  to  be  justified  in  so  doing.  I  know  very  well  that  to 
murmur,  or  even  whisper  a  complaint,  some  men  call  a  riotous  spirit ; 
but  they  are  in  the  right  of  it  to  complain,  and  complain  aloud,  and 
they  will  complain  till  they  are  either  redressed  or  become  poor,  de- 
luded, miserable,  ductile  dupes,  fitted  to  be  made  the  slaves  of  ...  . 
arbitrary  power."  * 

By  such  appeals  he  aroused  the  people  to  a  full  sense  of 
their  danger,  and  he  did  not  lay  by  the  pen  in  this  cause 
until  the  liberties  of  his  country  had  been  acknowledged  by 
her  oppressors,  —  until  America  stood  before  the  world  as  a 
recognized  power  among  the  nations.  Never  did  man  devote 
his  entire  energies  to  any  one  great  object  with  more  cour- 
age, sagacity,  and  determination,  than  did  Samuel  Adams 
to  the  achievement  of  American  independence. 

"  To  promote  that  end,"  says  Bancroft,  in  his  History,  "  he  was 
ready  to  serve  and  never  claim  a  reward  for  service  ;  to  efface  him- 
self, and  put  forward  others;  seeking  the  greatest  things  for  his 
country,  and  content  with  the  humblest  for  himself.  Boston  gath- 
ered about  him.     From  a  town  of  merchants  and  mechanics,  it  grew 

*  «  Determinates,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  August  8,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  209 

with  him  to  be  the  hope  of  the  world  ;  and  the  sons  of  toil,  as  they 
took  courage  to  peril  fortune  and  life  for  the  liberties  they  inherited, 
rose  to  be,  and  feel  that  they  were,  the  champions  of  human  freedom. 
"With  the  people  of  Boston,  in  the  street,  at  public  meetings,  at  the 
shipyards,  wherever  he  met  them,  he  reasoned  on  the  subject  that 
engrossed  his  affections."  * 

In  proportion  as  this  man  advanced  his  great  idea  among 
the  people,  the  Governor  and  crown  officers  saw  his  object, 
and  resolved  upon  his  destruction.  A  pretext  was  wanted 
to  arrest  some  of  the  leaders  on  a  charge  of  treason,  for  trial 
in  England,  where  conviction  and  execution  would  certainly 
have  followed ;  but  much  as  victims  were  desired  "  to  strike 
terror  into  the  other  Colonies,"  some  appearance  of  legality 
was  necessary,  and,  as  yet,  the  crown  lawyers  could  discover 
no  act  that  might  be  brought  under  the  head  of  treason. 
Above  all,  they  desired  to  "  take  off"  Samuel  Adams,  whom 
Bernard  especially  hated.  With  a  view  to  this,  information 
was  collected  secretly,  sworn  to  before  Chief  Justice  Hutch- 
inson, and  sent  by  the  Governor  to  the  Secretary  of  State 
with  a  letter,  in  which  he  says  to  the  Earl :  "  I  shall  enclose 
in  the  cover  of  this  a  deposition  taken  before  us,  in  which 
the  spirit  of  the  movers  of  the  Boston  mobs  will  be  explained, 
and  the  intention  of  the  faction  exemplified  in  one  of  the 
principal  and  most  desperate  of  the  chiefs  of  the  faction." 
This  affidavit,  which  is  still  on  file  in  the  London  State-paper 
Office,  was  read  and  noted  in  Council ;  but  apparently  its 
contents  were  not  considered  as  sufficient  to  warrant  the 
"  taking  off"  intended. 

"Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

"  The  information  of  Richard  Sylvester  of  Boston,  in  the  Province 
aforesaid,  innholder,  taken  before  me,  Thomas  Hutchinson,  Esq., 
Chief  Justice  of  said  Province,  this  twenty-third  day  of  January,  in 
the  ninth  year  of  his  Majesty's  reign : 

"  This  informant  sayeth,  that  the  day  after  the  boat  belonging  to 

*  Bancroft's  History,  VI.  192-194. 
vol.  i.  14 


210  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

Mr.  Harrison  was  burnt,  the  last  summer,  the  informant  observed 
several  parties  of  men  gathered  in  the  street  at  the  south  end  of  the 
town  of  Boston,  in  the  forenoon  of  the  day.  The  informant  went 
up  to  one  of  the  parties,  and  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  then  one  of  the 
Representatives  of  Boston,  happened  to  join  the  same  party  near 
about  the  same  time,  trembling  and  in  great  agitation.*  The  party 
consisted  of  about  seven  in  number,  who  were  unknown  to  the  in- 
formant, he  having  but  little  acquaintance  with  the  inhabitants,  or, 
if  any  of  them  were  known,  he  cannot  now  recollect  them.  The  in- 
formant heard  the  said  Samuel  Adams  then  say  to  the  said  party, 
*  If  you  are  men,  behave  like  men.  Let  us  take  up  arms  immedi- 
ately, and  be  free,  and  seize  all  the  King's  officers.  We  shall  have 
thirty  thousand  men  to  join  us  from  the  country.'  The  informant 
then  walked  off,  believing  his  company  was  disagreeable.  The  in- 
formant further  sayeth,  that  after  the  burning  of  the  boat  aforesaid, 
and  before  the  arrival  of  the  troops,  the  said  Samuel  Adams  has  been 
divers  times  at  the  house  of  the  informant,  and  at  one  of  those  times 
particularly  the  informant  began  a  discourse  concerning  the  times ; 
and  the  said  Samuel  Adams  said  :  *  We  will  not  submit  to  any 
tax,  nor  become  slaves.  We  will  take  up  arms,  and  spend  our  last 
drop  of  blood  before  the  King  and  Parliament  shall  impose  on  us, 
and  settle  crown  officers  in  this  country  to  dragoon  us.  The  coun- 
try was  first  settled  by  our  ancestors,  therefore  we  are  free  and  want 
no  king.  The  times  were  never  better  in  Rome  than  when  they 
had  no  king  and  were  a  free  state ;  and  as  this  is  a  great  empire, 
we  shall  have  it  in  our  power  to  give  laws  to  England.'  The  in- 
formant further  sayeth,  that,  at  divers  times  between  the  burning  of 
the  boat  aforesaid  and  the  arrival  of  the  troops  aforesaid,  he  has 
heard  the  said  Adams  express  himself  in  words  to  very  much  the 
same  purpose,  and  that  the  informant's  wife  has  sometimes  been  pres- 
ent, and  at  one  or  more  of  such  times,  George  Mason  of  Boston, 
painter,  was  present.  The  informant  further  sayeth,  that  about  a 
fortnight  before  the  troops  arrived,  the  aforesaid  Samuel  Adams, 
being  at  the  house  of  the  informant,  the  informant  asked  him  what 
he  thought  of  the  times.  The  said  Adams  answered,  with  great 
alertness,  that,  on  lighting  the  beacon,  we  should  be  joined  with 

*  The  constitutional  tremulousness   of  hand  and  voice  common   to  Mr. 
Adams  and  his  family  is  elsewhere  described. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  211 

thirty  thousand  men  from  the  country  with  their  knapsacks  and 
bayonets  fixed,  and  added,  *  We  will  destroy  every  soldier  that  dare 
put  his  foot  on  shore.  His  Majesty  has  no  right  to  send  troops  here 
to  invade  the  country,  and  I  look  upon  them  as  foreign  enemies ! ' 
This  informant  further  sayeth,  that  two  or  three  days  before  the 
troops  arrived,  the  said  Samuel  Adams  said  to  the  informant,  that 
Governor  Bernard  and  Mr.  Hutchinson  and  the  Commissioners  of 
the  Customs  had  sent  for  troops,  and  the  said  Adams  made  bitter 
exclamations  against  them  for  so  doing,  and  also  repeated  most  of 
the  language  about  opposing  the  King's  troops,  which  he  had  used 
as  above  mentioned  about  a  fortnight  before.  The  informant  con- 
tradicted the  said  Samuel  Adams,  and  attributed  the  sending  troops 
to  the  resolve  of  the  General  Court  and  the  proceedings  of  the  town 
meeting.* 

"  Sworn  to  T.  Hutchinson." 

No  other  affidavits,  if  any  were  taken,  are  on  file  against 
Mr.  Adams,  but  statements  were  made  by  this  informant 
against  Dr.  Benjamin  Church,  Dr.  Joseph  Warren,  and 
Thomas  Chase  of  Boston,  distiller,  to  the  same  purport  as 
that  already  quoted.  However  truthful  the  information,  it 
could  not  have  been  the  serious  intention  of  the  patriots  to 
attempt  any  organized  armed  resistance.  It  would  have 
been  madness  at  that  time.  As  yet  the  bond  of  union  be* 
tween  the  Colonies,  necessary  for  successful  resistance,  had 
not  been  formed.  The  time  to  strike  was  not  come.  Hot 
spirits  there  were  who  could  not  count  the  consequences, 
and,  as  in  all  bodies  of  oppressed  people,  were  prepared  to 
rush  into  conflict.  Thirty-thousand  men,  gun  in  hand, 
could  undoubtedly  have  been  raised  to  drive  the  soldiers 
into  the  sea,  but  their  efforts  must  have  resulted  in  failure. 

Even  in  1776,  after  all  hope  of  redress  had  left  the  Amer- 
icans, and  when  blood  had  been  spilled,  it  required  constant 
exertions  to  maintain  a  unanimity  in  favor  of  the  last  ap- 
peal. To  have  attempted  it  as  early  as  the  midsummer  of 
1768  would  have  retarded  American  liberty  many  years. 

*  London  State-paper  Office,  "America  and  West  Indies,"  No.  152. 


212  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

On  the  5th  of  September,  a  paper  in  the  form  of  queries, 
signed  "  Clericus  Americanus,"  appeared  in  the  Boston  Ga- 
zette, taking  the  ground  that,  as  the  late  acts  implied  a  leap- 
ing over  all  those  covenants  and  compacts  which  were  the 
basis  of  the  political  union  with  Great  Britain,  it  was  expe- 
dient for  the  inhabitants  of  every  town  in  the  Province  to 
choose  representatives  for  a  General  Assembly,  to  petition 
for  an  enlargement  of  their  privileges.  The  writer  having 
explained  his  plans,  continues  :  — 

"  If  an  army  should  be  sent  to  reduce  us  to  slavery,  we  will  put 
our  lives  in  our  hands,  and  cry  to  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  who 
will  do  right,  saying :  Behold,  how  they  come  to  cast  us  out  of 
thy  possession,  which  thou  hast  given  us  to  inherit.  Help  us,  O 
Lord,  our  God,  for  we  rest  on  Thee,  and  in  thy  name  we  go  against 
this  multitude !  "  * 

The  author  of  this  is  unknown.  Bernard,  in  a  letter  to 
Lord  Hillsborough,  called  it  "  a  system  of  politics  exceeding 
all  former  exceedings."  "  Some  took  it,"  he  says,  "  for  the 
casual  ravings  of  an  occasional  enthusiast,  but  I  persuaded 
myself  that  it  came  out  of  the  cabinet  of  the  faction."  f 
On  Wednesday  the  Senegal  left  port,  and  on  the  following 
day  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  sailed  for  Nova  Scotia.  The 
Governor  took  care  that  the  news  should  be  circulated  that 
they  had  gone  for  troops,  and  long  before  night  it  was  known 
all  over  town.  A  petition  for  a  town  meeting  was  signed  on 
the  9th,  "to  consider  the  most  wise,  constitutional,  loyal, 
and  salutary  measures "  as  to  the  expected  arrival  of  the 
troops.  The  next  evening,  Otis,  Samuel  Adams,  and  War- 
ren met  at  the  house  of  Warren,  —  now  the  site  of  the 
American  House,  —  to  draw  up  resolves,  arrange  for  the 
proceedings,  and  prepare  the  order  of  debate 4  Bernard 
says,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Hillsborough,  "  the  faction  im- 

*  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  5,  1768. 
t  Bernard  to  Hillsborough,  Sept.  16,  1768. 

J  Capt.  Corner's  Diary,  kept  aboard  the  war-ship  Senegal  in  Boston  Har- 
bor, now  in  the  London  State-paper  Office. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  213 

mediately  took  the  alarm  "  on  hearing  that  the  troops  were 
expected ;  and  the  timid  Governor,  fearful  of  every  event, 
distorted  the  calm  and  deliberate  measures  concerted  at 
Warren's  house  into  "  a  plan  to  surprise  and  take  the  Cas- 
tle on  the  night  following  "  ;  but  his  Excellency's  informant 
on  this  occasion  evidently  allowed  his  fears  or  imagination 
to  guide  his  report.  Insurrection  was  far  from  the  inten- 
tion of  the  patriot  trio.  In  the  crisis  before  them,  union  first 
of  the  towns  of  the  Province,  and  afterwards  of  the  Colonies, 
was  the  plan.  On  Sunday,  the  Governor,  in  a  panic,  ordered 
the  removal  of  the  old  iron  "  skillet,''  which  from  the  ear- 
liest times  had  stood  on  Beacon  Hill,  to  be  lighted  when  the 
country  was  to  be  alarmed.  The  meeting  took  place  on 
Monday,  the  12th,  at  Faneuil  Hall,  where  four  hundred  mus- 
kets lay  upon  the  floor.  Otis  was  moderator,  and  the  elo- 
quent Cooper  opened  the  proceedings  with  prayer.  Cushing, 
Samuel  Adams,  Dana,  Rowe,  Hancock,  Kent,  and  Warren 
were  appointed  a  committee  to  wait  upon  his  Excellency, 
to  inquire  his  reasons  for  expecting  the  troops,  and  "to 
humbly  request  him  to  issue  precepts  for  a  General  Assem- 
bly to  be  convened  with  the  utmost  speed,  in  order  that  such 
measures  might  be  taken  as,  in  their  wisdom,  they  might 
think  proper  "  for  the  preservation  of  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  the  people.  A  committee  was  also  appointed  to  report 
the  measures  most  salutary  for  the  present  emergency. 
The  meeting  adjourned,  and  came  together  again  on  the 
following  day,  when  the  committee  reported  that  the  Gov- 
ernor had  no  official  communication  to  make  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  troops,  and  had  refused  to  issue  precepts  for  an 
Assembly.  Upon  this,  the  meeting  adopted  a  "Declara- 
tion," in  which  it  was  resolved  that  the  inhabitants  of  Bos- 
ton, at  the  utmost  peril  of  their  lives  and  fortunes,  maintain 
and  defend  their  rights,  liberties,  privileges,  and  immunities. 
Otis  addressed  the  meeting,  and  pointing  to  the  arms, "  These 
are  the  arms,"  said  he  ;  "  when  an  attempt  is  made  upon  your 
liberties,  they  will  be  delivered.     Our  declaration  wants  no 


214  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Sept. 


I 


explanation."     The  Governor's  account  of  the  meeting  to 
the  Ministry  says :  — 

"  When  first  it  was  moved  that  the  Governor  be  desired  to  call 
an  Assembly,  it  was  said  to  be  to  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  Prov- 
ince, and  put  it  in  a  posture  of  defence ;  it  was  therefore  observed 
that  that  would  make  troops  necessary,  and  it  was  immediately 
struck  out.  This  was  overruled,  for  indeed  it  was  rather  premature. 
Another,  an  old  man,  protested  against  everything  but  rising  imme- 
diately, and  taking  all  power  into  their  own  hands.  One  man,  very 
profligate  and  abandoned,  argued  for  massacring  their  enemies. 
His  argument  was,  in  short,  liberty  is  as  precious  as  life ;  if  a  man 
attempts  to  take  my  life,  I  have  a  right  to  take  his ;  ergo,  if  a  man 
attempts  to  take  away  my  liberty,  I  have  a  right  to  take  his  life. 
He  also  argued,  that  when  a  people's  liberties  were  threatened,  they 
were  in  a  state  of  war,  and  had  a  right  to  defend  themselves  ;  and 
he  carried  these  arguments  so  far,  that  his  own  party  were  obliged 
to  silence  him."  * 

But  the  object  in  calling  the  meeting  was  not  to  be  at- 
tained by  rash  counsels,  which  served  rather  to  arm  the  en- 
emy against  them.  In  the  "  Declaration  "  "  they  intrenched 
themselves  within  the  self-evident  law,  that  it  is  the  first 
principle  in  civil  society,  founded  in  nature  and  reason,  that 
no  law  of  the  society  can  be  binding  on  any  individual  with- 
out his  consent,  given  by  himself  in  person,  or  by  his  repre- 
sentative of  his  or  her  own  free  election."  Wisdom  and 
caution  ruled  the  hour,  and  no  measure  was  suffered  to 
prevail  which  could  cause  the  inland  towns  to  withhold  their 
cheerful  assent  from  the  great  experiment  which  was  to  be 
tried.  The  Legislature  had  been  arbitrarily  dissolved,  and 
the  Governor  had  refused  to  call  another.  Following  tjie 
precedent  of  1688,  the  meeting  proposed  a  convention  of  the 
towns  of  Massachusetts  by  their  representatives  ;  and  for  Bos- 
ton, elected  Cushing,  Otis,  Samuel  Adams,  and  Hancock. 
The  prevailing  rumor  of  a  war  with  France,  and  an  ancient 

*  Bernard's  letter  to  Lord  Hillsborough. 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  215 

precedent  in  England,  was  also  used  to  support  a  vote  that 
every  one  of  the  inhabitants  should  provide  himself  with 
fire-arms  and  ammunition.* 

The  town  was  still  under  the  greatest  excitement.  The 
loyalists  universally  condemned  the  meeting  and  its  objects. 
"  They  have  delivered  their  sentiments,"  said  General  Gage, 
when  he  read  the  proceedings,  "  in  the  style  of  a  ruling  and 
sovereign  nation,  who  acknowledge  no  dependence.  Cap- 
tain Corner,  on  board  his  ship,  kept  a  diary  for  the  greater 
part  of  September,  which  he  forwarded  to  Commodore  Hood. 
It  tells  of  "  panics  at  the  Castle,"  of  "  cabals  and  menaces," 
news  from  England  of  "  fifty  state  prisoners  to  be  sent 
home "  for  trial,  "  the  militia  under  arms,  exercising  and 
firing,"  "  confusion  and  alarms,"  rumors  of  "  an  attack 
on  the  Castle,"  and  other  exciting  details  ;  but  though  a 
war-ship  was  stationed  to  protect  the  Castle,  and  the  crown 
officers  appear  to  have  been  much  frightened,  there  was 
evidently  no  intention  of  violence. 

The  convention,  which  met  on  the  22d  of  September,  was 
regarded  by  many  with  anxiety  and  alarm.  They  feared  it 
might  result  in  such  acts  as  would  lead  to  a  forfeiture  of 
the  charter.  But  the  controlling  minds  had  been  too  long 
schooled  in  prudence  to  pass  the  limits  which  should  "  keep 
the  enemy  in  the  wrong  ";  and  though,  after  the  convention 
had  adjourned,  the  crown  officers  exultingly  asserted  that 
the  members  had  committed  treason,  it  was  found  in  Eng- 
land, after  a  thorough  canvassing  of  their  proceedings,  that 
they  had  taken  no  step  without  careful  deliberation,  and 
had  warily  guarded  against  any  infraction  of  the  law.f  The 
main  object,  which  was  the  moral  effect  of  an  assembly  of 
the  people,  held  independently  of  the  regular  Legislature, 
whose  action  tyranny  had  clogged,  was  accomplished ;  and, 
on  future  occasions  of  a  similar  or  more  aggravated  nature, 
the  precedent  could  be  used  for  other  conventions  with  per- 
haps even  greater  results. 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  205.  f  Bancroft,  VI.  206. 


216  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

The  delegates  from  sixty  towns  assembled  at  Faneuil  Hall 
on  the  first  day.  Before  the  close  of  the  convention,  there 
was  a  representation  from  ninety-six  towns  and  eight  dis- 
tricts, —  or  nearly  every  settlement  in  the  Province.  Otis, 
though  he  had  acted  as  moderator  of  the  meeting  which  gave 
birth  to  this  assembly,  unaccountably  absented  himself  in 
the  country  during  the  first  three  days  of  its  sitting.*  This 
greatly  disconcerted  his  friends,  and,  consequently,  after  the 
choice  of  Cushing  as  moderator,  and  Adams  as  clerk,  they 
remained  with  open  doors  the  rest  of  the  week,  taking  no 
steps  further  than  to  send  a  message  to  the  Governor,  pray- 
ing "  that  his  Excellency  would  be  pleased  to  convene  the 
constitutional  Assembly  of  the  Province,' '  thus  publishing 
to  the  world  that  their  object  was  to  procure  the  meeting 
of  their  charter  Legislature,  at  which  they  might  consider 
the  threatened  destruction  of  their  liberties.  The  Governor 
declined  to  receive  their  petition,  assuming  that  such  an 
act  would  be  virtually  admitting  the  legality  of  the  assem- 
bly. He  also  addressed  them  a  message  against  continuing 
their  session,  and  urged  that  instantly  and  before  doing 
any  business  they  should  break  up  and  separate. 

"  I  speak  to  you  now,"  he  continued,  "  as  a  friend  to  the  Province 
and  a  well-wisher  to  the  individuals  of  it :  but  if  you  pay  no  re- 
gard to  this  admonition,  I  must,  as  Governor,  assert  the  prerogative 
of  the  Crown  in  a  more  public  manner.  For,  assure  yourselves 
(I  speak  from  instructions)  the  King  is  determined  to  maintain  his 
entire  sovereignty  over  this  province,  and  whoever  shall  persist  in 
usurping  any  of  the  rights  of  it  shall  repent  his  rashness." 

The  continued  absence  of  Otis  still  retarded  the  proceed- 
ings ;  for  his  popularity  and  position  as  a  leader  rendered 
it  indispensable  that  he  should  be  there.  Without  the  pres- 
ence of  so  important  a  character,  the  popular  party  would 
have  been  regarded  by  the  royalists  as  divided  in  counsel, 
where  unanimity  was  the  basis  of  success.  In  the  following 
week  he  reappeared,  when  the  proceedings  were  continued 

*  Capt.  Corner's  Diary  for  Thursday,  22d  September. 


1768.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  217 

with  closed  doors.*  It  was  thought  by  members  residing 
in  remote  districts,  that  violent  acts  were  contemplated  by 
the  leaders,  —  a  fear  perhaps  engendered  by  the  false  reports 
of  the  crown  officers.  It  was,  therefore,  not  without  diffi- 
culty that  the  measures  of  the  convention  were  carried  by 
their  originators,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  Adams 
was  not  entirely  satisfied  with  the  proceedings,  although  the 
petition  to  the  King,  written  by  himself,  was  probably 
adopted  through  his  efforts.  A  few  days  after  the  adjourn- 
ment, Bernard  wrote  to  Hillsborough :  — 

"  Many  of  the  deputies  came  down  with  instructions  and  disposi- 
tion to  prevent  the  Bostoneers  involving  the  Province  in  their  own 
mad  devices.  Many  of  them  were  sensible,  from  the  beginning,  of 
the  impropriety  and  danger  of  this  proceeding,  and  were  desirous, 
by  a  moderate  conduct,  to  correct  the  one  and  ward  off  the  other. 
My  message,  which  was  said  to  be  very  high  (though  I  hope  not  too 
high  for  the  occasion),  although  it  did  not  disperse  them,  had  the 
good  effect  to  keep  them  in  awe.  Hence  it  was  that  Otis,  when  he 
joined  them,  was  perfectly  tame,  and  his  colleague  Adams,  when  he 
attempted  to  launch  out  in  the  language  used  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, was  presently  silenced."  f 

The  stern  and  inflexible  character  of  Samuel  Adams  could 
ill  brook  these  vacillations  of  political  sentiment.  It  was 
either  on  this  or  a  similar  occasion,  during  the  sitting  of  the 
convention,  that  he  exclaimed,  as  the  words  were  remem- 
bered by  his  daughter  :  "  I  am  in  fashion  and  out  of  fashion,  as 
the  whim  goes.  I  will  stand  alone.  I  will  oppose  this  tyranny 
at  the  threshold,  though  the  fabric  of  liberty  fall,  and  I  per- 
ish in  its  ruins."  J  For  six  days  the  convention  was  in  ses- 
sion. Besides  adopting  the  petition  to  the  King  (that  eman- 
ating from  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  previous 
winter),  and  a  letter  to  Deberdt,  also  written  by  Adams,  they 
carefully  disclaimed  the  assumption  by  the  convention  of  any 

*  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  Sept.  27,  1768. 

t  Bernard  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  Oct.  3,  1768. 

X  Manuscript  Memoir  by  the  daughter  of  Samuel  Adams,  1804. 


218  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept.,  Oct. 

legislative  and  government  authority,  declared  their  object  to 
be  the  obtaining  of  relief  from  the  oppressive  system  of  im- 
posts, custom-house  officers,  and  regular  troops,  which  were 
grievous  to  the  Province,  and  incompatible  with  its  just  au- 
thority, its  rights  and  liberties.    In  their  address,  they  say :  — 

"  We  hold  that  the  sovereignty  of  King  George  the  Third  is  en- 
tire in  all  parts  of  the  British  empire.  God  forbid  that  we  should 
ever  act  or  wish  anything  in  repugnation  of  the  same.  "We  appear 
as  plain,  honest  men,  humbly  desiring  peace  and  order ;  and  while 
the  people  observe  a  medium  between  abject  submission  and  a  slav- 
ish stupidity  under  grievous  oppressions  on  the  one  hand,  and  ille- 
gal attempts  to  obtain  relief  on  the  other,  and  steadily  persevere  in 
constitutional  applications  to  recover  their  just  rights  and  liberties, 
they  think  they  may  promise  themselves  success." 

The  object  of  the  convention  having  been  accomplished,  it 
dissolved ;  and  in  the  absence  of  a  charter  Assembly,  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council  remained  in  charge  of  the  public  affairs. 

On  the  day  the  convention  dissolved,  the  squadron  of  seven 
armed  vessels  arrived  from  Halifax  with  two  regiments  of 
troops.  The  Council  refused  to  prepare  quarters  for  them, 
upon  which  the  fleet,  with  springs  on  their  cables,  was  placed 
off  the  wharves,  so  as  to  command  the  town ;  and  then  the 
Fourteenth  and  Twenty-ninth  Regiments,  with  drums  beat- 
ing, fifes  playing,  and  colors  flying,  were  landed  on  Long 
Wharf,  and  marched  to  Boston  Common,  where  they  paraded 
in  full  uniform,  each  soldier  being  provided  with  sixteen 
rounds  of  shot,  and  all  hostile  preparations  made  as  if  they 
were  entering  the  territory  of  a  foreign  enemy.  Colonel 
Dalrymple,  their  commander,  encamped  the  Twenty-ninth 
Regiment,  and  demanded  quarter  of  the  selectmen  for  the 
Fourteenth.  The  law  would  have  justified  a  refusal,  but  the 
compassion  of  the  inhabitants  being  moved  for  the  soldiers 
standing  shelterless  in  the  cold  night,  they  were  allowed  by 
the  Sons  of  Liberty  to  sleep  in  Faneuil  Hall,  —  the  first  time 
that  the  "  Cradle  of  Liberty,''  as  it  came  afterwards  to  be 
called,  had  echoed  to  the  clank  of  a  foeman's  tread.    The 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  219 

menace  of  military  rule  served  only  to  exasperate  the  little 
town  which  it  was  intended  to  overawe.  The  following  let- 
ter illustrates  the  temper  of  the  people :  — 

Boston,  Oct.  3,  1768. 
SrR, — 

I  am  to  acknowledge  your  favor  of  the  27th  June  per  Blure. 
The  troops,  which  you  mentioned  in  your  letter  to  the  Speaker, 
arrived  last  week.  Barracks  are  provided  for  them  at  the  Castle, 
which  is  within  the  limits  of  the  town,  sufficient  to  contain  more  than 
their  number.  Governor  Bernard,  in  opposition  to  the  unanimous 
advice  of  his  Council,  insists  upon  their  being  quartered  in  the  body 
of  the  town ;  they  remain  this  day  unprovided  with  any  other  quar- 
ters. The  people,  in  general,  as  you  may  naturally  suppose,  are 
utterly  averse  to  their  continuing  among  them ;  yet  such  was  their 
humanity  towards  them  that  they  were  careful  to  shelter  them  from 
the  open  air  for  a  night  or  two,  even  in  the  City  Hall.  "What  will 
be  the  event  of,  I  had  almost  said  the  obstinacy  of  the  Governor 
against  the  sense  of  a  provoked  people,  God  only  knows.  The  reve- 
nue, be  it  just  or  not,  is  not  at  all  affected  in  this  struggle.  It  ha3 
been  paid  without  interruption  during  the  retirement  of  the  Commis- 
sioners to  the  Castle,  which  was  of  their  own  accord,  and,  some  sus- 
pect, was  to  make  an  appearance  and  a  plausible  pretence  to  the 
nation.  The  troops  are  hitherto  orderly.  The  inhabitants  pre- 
serve their  peace  and  patience.  The  late  convention  has  no  doubt 
contributed  much  towards  it.  They,  however,  look  upon  their 
situation,  being  surrounded  with  men  of  war,  hostile,  at  least  in 
appearance,  and  the  determination  of  the  Governor  to  quarter  sol- 
diers upon  them  when  there  are  barracks  provided  according  to  act 
of  Parliament,  which  was  made  undoubtedly  to  prevent  such  a  ca- 
lamity, to  be  a  new  and  intolerable  grievance.  They  are  resolved 
not  to  pay  their  money  without  their  own  consent,  and  are  more 
than  ever  determined  to  relinquish  every  article,  however  dear,  that 
comes  from  Britain,  till  the  acts  are  repealed  and  the  troops  re- 
moved. May  God  preserve  the  nation  from  being  greatly  injured, 
if  not  finally  ruined,  by  the  vile  ministrations  of  wicked  men  in 

America. 

I  am,  in  haste,  your  most  humble  servant, 

Samuel  Adams. 
Dennys  Deberdt,  Esq. 


.     CHAPTER   X. 

Military  Rule  in  Boston.  —  Adams -wftgaa.  the  People  against  the  Approach  Qt- 

^Tyranny.  —  His  Essays  in  the  Boston  Gazette.  —  Conduct  and  Influence  of 

the  Soldiery. — Meeting  of  Parliament.  —  The  King  enraged  against  the 

Town  of  Boston.  —  Edmund  Burke  defends  Massachusetts.  — Lord  North 

and  his  Policy. — Boston  to  be  subjugated  and  her  Leaders  tried  for  Trea- 


Now  that  the  troops  were  quartered  in  Boston,  they 
found  themselves  in  an  orderly  town,  without  an  enemy  to 
fight.  The  inhabitants,  keenly  alive  to  their  rights,  and  yet 
careful  not  to  be  the  aggressors,  stood  quietly  by,  and  wit- 
nessed this  tyranny,  but  knew  that  the  time  for  action  was 
not  yet.  To  the  requisition  for  allowances  for  the  soldiers 
which  was  laid  before  the  Council,  that  body  replied  that 
they  were  ready  to  comply  on  their  part  with  the  act  of  Par- 
liament, if  Colonel  Dalrymple  would  on  his.  But  the  latter 
was  too  haughty  to  make  any  promises.  They  were  willing 
to  appoint  a  commissary,  if  he  would  "  take  the  risk  of  the 
Province's  paying,"  since  the  Legislature  was  dissolved,  and 
no  other  power,  by  the  charter,  could  appropriate  the  money 
of  the  Province. 

General  Gage,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  forces  in  Amer- 
ica, came  to  Boston  to  demand  quarters  for  the  troops ;  but 
the  Council  still  refused  until  the  barracks  at  the  Castle 
were  filled,  and,  after  trying  every  plan,  the  Governor  ad- 
mitted that  he  was  "  at  the  end  of  his  tether,"  for  the  law 
was  unquestionably  on  the  side  of  the  town.  Finally,  as 
the  weather  was  growing  inclement,  the  main  guard  was 
established  opposite  the  State  House,  which  was  occupied 
by  troops,  and  their  cannon  were  pointed  towards  the  legis- 
lative hall.* 

*  Massachusetts  Gazette,  Nov.  3,  1768. 


Oct.,  1768]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  221 

The  Council  appealed  to  the  General,  in  a  memorial,  to 
testify  from  his  own  observation,  that  the  town  was  peace- 
ful, and  desired  him  to  remove  the  obnoxious  regiments  to 
the  Castle  or  Point  Shirley.  But,  though  Gage  admitted 
the  justness  of  their  statements,  he  declined  to  remove  the 
troops.  Boston  was  under  a  military  despotism.  The  re- 
fusal to  make  use  of  the  barracks  at  the  Castle,  which  were 
yet  unfilled,  and  quartering  the  soldiers  on  the  town,  was  a 
manifest  infringement  of  the  act  of  Parliament,  but  remon- 
strances were  lost  upon  the  commander. 

Mr.  Adams  viewed  the  establishment  of  military  power  as 
the  first  step  in  the  system  which  must  eventually  bring  on 
a  collision.  As  "  Principiis  Obsta,"  he  showed  the  danger 
of  an  armed  force  among  a  people.* 

"<  Where  law  ends/  says  Mr.  Locke, '.  tyranny  begins,  if  the  law 
be  transgressed  to  another's  harm.,  No  one,  I  believe,  will  deny 
the  truth  of  the  observation ;  and,  therefore,  I  again  appeal  to  com- 
mon sense,  whether  the  act  which  provides  for  the  quartering  and 
billeting  the  King's  troops  was  not  transgressed  when  the  barracks 
at  the  Castle,  which  are  sufficient  to  contain  more  than  the  whole 
number  of  soldiers  now  in  this  town,  were  absolutely  refused. 
This,  I  presume,  cannot  be  contested.  Should  any  one  say  that 
the  law  is  not  transgressed  '  to  another's  harm,'  the  assertion,  I  dare 
say,  would  contradict  the  feelings  of  every  sober  householder  in  the 
town.  No  man  can  pretend  to  say  that  the  peace  and  good  order 
of  the  community  is  so  secure  with  soldiers  quartered  in  the  body 
of  a  city  as  without  them.  Besides,  where  military  power  is  intro- 
duced, military  maxims  are  propagated  and  adopted  which  are 
inconsistent  with,  and  must  soon  eradicate,  every  idea  of  civil  gov- 
ernment. Do  we  not  already  find  some  persons  weak  enough  to 
believe  that  an  officer  is  obliged  to  obey  the  order  of  his  superior, 
though  it  be  even  against  the  law?  And  let  any  one  consider 
whether  this  doctrine  does  not  directly  lead  even  to  the  setting  up 
that  officer,  whoever  he  may  be,  as  a  tyrant  ? 

"It  is  moreover  to  be  observed,  that  the  military  government 
and  civil  are  so  different  from  each  other,  if  not  opposite,  that  they 

*  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  17,  1768. 


222  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

cannot  long  subsist  together.  Soldiers  are  not  governed  properly 
by  the  laws  of  their  country,  but  by  a  law  made  for  them  only. 
This  may,  in  time,  make  them  look  upon  themselves  as  a  body  of 
men  different  from  the  rest  of  the  people ;  and  as  they,  and  they 
only,  have  the  sword  in  their  hands,  they  may  sooner  or  later  begin 
to  look  upon  themselves  as  the  lords,  and  not  the  servants,  of  the 
people.  Instead  of  enforcing  the  execution  of  the  law,  which  by 
the  way  is  far  from  being  the  original  interest  of  soldiers,  they  may 
refuse  to  obey  it  themselves,  —  nay,  they  may  even  make  laws  for 
themselves,  and  enforce  them  by  the  power  of  the  sword !  Such 
instances  are  not  uncommon  in  history,  and  they  always  will  hap- 
pen when  troops  are  put  under  the  direction  of  an  ambitious  or  cov- 
etous Governor.  And  if  there  is  any  reason  to  fear  that  this  may 
be  the  consequence  of  a  transgression  of  the  act  of  Parliament,  it  is 
a  transgression  not  *  to  the  harm '  of  individuals  only,  but  of  the 
public.  It  behooves  the  public,  then,  to  be  aware  of  the  danger, 
and  like  sober  men  to  avail  themselves  of  the  law  while  it  is  in 
their  power.  It  is  always  safe  to  adhere  to  the  law,  and  to  keep 
every  man  of  every  denomination  and  character  within  its  bounds. 
Not  to  do  this  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  imprudent.  When- 
ever it  becomes  a  question  of  prudence,  whether  we  shall  make  use 
of  legal  and  constitutional  methods  to  prevent  the  encroachments 
of  any  kind  of  power,  what  will  it  be  but  to  depart  from  the  straight 
line,  to  give  up  the  law  and  the  Constitution,  which  is  fixed  and  sta- 
ble, and  is  the  collected  and  long  digested  sentiment  of  the  whole, 
and  to  substitute  in  its  room  the  opinion  of  individuals,  than  which 
nothing  can  be  more  uncertain.  The  sentiments  of  men,  in  such  a 
case,  would,  in  all  likelihood,  be  as  various  as  their  sentiments  in 
religion  or  anything  else ;  and  as  there  would  be  no  settled  rule  for 
the  public  to  advert  to,  the  safety  of  the  people  would  probably  be 
at  an  end." 

In  another  essay,  signed  "  Cedant  Arma  Togae,"  he  also 
considers  the  quartering  of  troops  upon  the  people,  and  ex- 
poses its  illegality  and  uselessness  in  the  present  instance. 

The  troops  were  no  sooner  established  in  the  town  than 
they  began  to  desert,  —  about  forty  having  disappeared  by 
the  middle  of  October;  and  their  escape  was  facilitated  by 
the  fact  that  none  of  the  people  would  betray  them.     On  the 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  ■  223 

3d,  a  proclamation  was  read  on  King  Street  (now  State 
Street)  to  the  troops,  offering  a  reward  of  ten  guineas  to 
each  soldier  who  should  inform  of  any  one  attempting  to 
seduce  him  from  the  service.  The  severest  discipline  was 
enforced,  and,  at  last,  a  deserter  having  been  captured,  he  was 
shot  on  the  Common,  and  buried  on  the  place  of  execution.* 
A  petition  for  his  pardon  was  sent  to  the  commanding  officer 
by  some  of  the  first  ladies  of  Boston.  On  the  morning  of 
the  6th,  nine  or  ten  soldiers  of  Colonel  Carr's  regiment  were 
severely  whipped  on  the  Common,  —  the  punishment  being 
inflicted  by  negro  drummers.  These  cruel  spectacles  were 
revolting  to  the  Americans,  who  had  hitherto  been  strangers 
to  such  horrors.  Samuel  Adams,  whose  sensitive  and  mer- 
ciful disposition  could  never  harbor  the  idea  of  a  human 
creature  being  thus  lacerated,  was  inexpressibly  shocked 
with  the  barbarities  of  military  discipline,  and,  in  at  least 
one  instance,  succeeded  in  saving  from  the  lash  a  soldier 
who  had  been  sentenced  to  a  degree  of  punishment  nearly 
equivalent  to  death.  The  wife  of  the  unfortunate  man  ap- 
plied to  him  in  her  distress,  in  hopes  that  the  weight  of  his 
character  would  have  some  influence  with  the  commander 
to  avert  the  penalty.  Mr.  Adams  promised  to  intercede, 
though  with  what  likelihood  of  success  can  be  imagined, 
from  his  position  in  opposition  to  government  measures,  and 
when  affidavits  were  taken  against  his  life  for  alleged  trea- 
son. His  appeal,  however,  much  to  his  own  surprise,  was 
successful ;  the  culprit  was  pardoned  solely  on  his  interces- 
sion, and  the  grateful  woman  was  ready,  would  he  have  per- 
mitted it,  to  embrace  the  knees  of  her  noble  advocate.  His 
daughter,  who  related  this  anecdote,  believed  that  the  act 
was  preparatory  to  some  overtures  which  were  afterwards 
made  to  Mr.  Adams  to  secure  him  for  the  government  cause. 
Orders  at  last  arrived  for  the  Commissioners  of  the  Cus- 
toms, who  had  remained  in  the  Castle  since  the  September 
mob,  to  return  to  Boston.     Before  returning,  they  desired 

*  Drake's  History  of  Boston,  p.  752. 


224  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

to  obtain  from  the  Council  some  excuse  for  their  flight :  but 
the  object  of  their  artful  departure  was  fully  understood, 
and  the  Council  instead  of  gratifying  them,  voted  that "  they 
had  no  just  reason  for  absconding  from  their  duty."  The 
officers,  left  to  their  own  discretion,  returned  on  the  10th, 
and  took  an  office  at  Concert  Hall  on  Queen  Street,  where  a 
sentinel  was  posted  at  the  door  for  their  protection.  Almost 
their  first  act  was  to  revive  the  affair  of  the  sloop  Liberty ; 
and  Hancock  and  Malcom  were  both  arrested,  and  the  for- 
mer prosecuted  for  the  recovery  of  the  cargo  of  the  sloop 
and  treble  damages.  Bail  having  been  given,  the  prosecu- 
tions were  dropped  in  the  following  March  by  order  of  the 
King's  advocate,  as  there  was  not  sufficient  evidence  to  sup- 
port the  allegations.  During  the  winter,  John  Adams  was 
engaged  by  Mr.  Hancock  as  his  counsel  and  advocate,  and 
he  says  there  were  few  days  *  when  he  was  not  summoned 
to  attend  the  Court  of  Admiralty.  The  Commissioners,  now 
supported  by  the  troops,  resumed  their  haughty  and  over- 
bearing manners,  and  became  even  more  disgusting  to  the 
inhabitants. 

Samuel  Adams  assailed  them  in  a  series  of  essays  pub- 
lished in  the  Boston  Evening  Post,  over  the  signature  of 
"  Candidus."  These  myrmidons  of  royalty  insolently  set 
themselves  up  as  beyond  the  reach  of  the  provincial  writers, 
and  presumed  upon  the  nature  of  their  office  and  consequent 
ability  to  annoy  the  merchants  in  proportion  as  they  were 
interfered  with.  In  these  essays  they  are  treated  without 
mercy.f     One  of  the  articles  concludes  thus :  — 

*  And  I  shall  here  quit  him  at  present,  to  assure  my  readers,  that 
I  esteem  the  liberty  of  the  press  (within  its  proper  limits)  as  the 
greatest  blessing  to  the  good,  and  the  severest  scourge  to  the  licen- 
tious ;  and  in  no  other  way  will  I  ever  use  it,  having  a  thorough 
detestation  to  licentiousness  of  all  denominations ;  nor  shall  threats 
from  men  in  power,  nor  any  mean,  underhand  methods,  prevent  me 

*  John  Adams's  Diary,  1768  (Works,  II.  215,  216). 
t  Evening  Post,  Dec.  26,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  225 

^\ 
from  exposing  the  abuse  of  the  power  put  into  their  hands.     In 
time,  I  will  show  the  conduct  of  those  men  in  proper  colors,  choos- 
ing to  finish  with  them  as  individuals  before  I  take  notice  of  their 
public  conduct  in  a  particular  manner." 

While  Boston,  as  the  citadel  of  American  liberty,  was  the 
special  object  of  ministerial  vengeance,  and  the  sympathies 
and  co-operation  of  the  other  Assemblies  were  extended  to 
Massachusetts,  great  changes  had  taken  place  in  the  English 
Cabinet.  Chatham,  weighed  down  by  infirmities,  had  re- 
signed. Townshend  was  dead,  and  the  Earl  of  Rochford 
had  been  appointed  Secretary  of  State.  Parliament  assem- 
bled on  the  8th  of  November,  when  the  King,  in  his  speech, 
alluded  to  the  fresh  troubles  in  America,  and  levelled  his 
chief  animosity  at  the  town  of  Boston.  He  promised,  with 
the  concurrence  and  support  of  the  Ministry,  to  defeat  "  the 
mischievous  designs  of  those  turbulent  and  seditious  persons 
who,  under  false  pretences,  have  but  too  successfully  deluded 
my  subjects  in  America."  In  the  animated  debate  that  fol- 
lowed, the  Bostonians  were  charged  with  "  defying  all  legal 
authority " ;  and  one  of  the  lords  recommended  that  the 
charter  and  laws  of  Massachusetts  should  be  so  changed  as 
"  to  give  the  King  the  appointment  of  the  Council,  and  to 
the  sheriffs  the  sole  power  of  returning  juries."  This  was 
carrying  tyranny  to  a  point  which  the  most  violent  had 
scarcely  contemplated.  The  independence  of  juries  and  the 
rights  of  charters  should  have  been  sacred  in  the  eyes  of 
every  Briton.  A  threat  to  suspend  them  in  any  part  of  the 
British  dominions  might  well  have  aroused  the  jealous  atten- 
tion of  the  English  people ;  but  the  menace  was  scarcely 
noticed  by  them.  Samuel  Adams  marked  the  words,  and 
weighed  them  well.  In  an  essay  on  the  rights  of  the  whole 
people  he  says :  — 

"  I  know  very  well  that  some  of  the  late  contenders  for  a  right 
in  the  British  Parliament  to  tax  Americans  who  are  not,  and  cannot 
be,  represented  there,  have  denied  this.  When  pressed  with  that 
fundamental  principle  of  nature  and  the  Constitution,  that  what  is 

vol.  i.  15 


226  LIFE  OF  'SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

a  man's  own  is  absolutely  his  own,  and  that  no  man  can  have  a  right 
to  take  it  from  him  without  his  consent,  they  have  alleged,  and  would 
fain  have  us  believe,  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  people  in  Britain 
are  excluded  the  right  of  choosing  their  own  representatives,  and 
therefore  that  they  are  taxed  without  their  consent.  Had  not  this 
doctrine  been  repeatedly  urged,  I  should  have  thought  the  bare 
mentioning  it  would  have  opened  the  eyes  of  the  people  there  to  see 
where  their  pretended  advocates  were  leading  them ;  that  in  order  to 
establish  a  right  in  the  people  in  England  to  enslave  the  Colonists 
under  a  plausible  show  of  great  zeal  for  the  honor  of  the  nation, 
they  are  driven  to  a  bold  assertion,  at  all  adventures,  that  truly  the 
greater  part  of  the  nation  are  themselves  subject  to  the  same  yoke 
of  bondage.  What  else  is  it  but  saying  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
people  of  Great  Britain  are  slaves  ?  For  if  the  fruit  of  all  their 
toil  and  industry  depends  upon  so  precarious  a  tenure  as  the  will  of 
a  few,  what  security  have  they  for  the  utmost  farthing  ?  What  are 
they  but  slaves,  delving  with  the  sweat  of  their  brows,  not  for  the 
benefit  of  themselves,  but  their  masters  ?  And  after  all  the  fine 
things  that  have  been  said  of  the  British  Constitution,  and  the  boasted 
freedom  and  happiness  of  the  subjects  who  live  under  it,  will  they 
rthank  these  modern  writers,  these  jealous  assertors  for  the  honor 
of  the  nation,  for  reducing  them  to  a  state  inferior  to  that  of  indented 
servants,  who  generally  contract  for  a  maintenance,  at  least,  for  their 
labor?"* 

Edmund  Burke  ably  and  eloquently  defended  the  action 
of  Massachusetts  during  the  debate  in  Parliament.  He  in- 
sisted that  the  order  requiring  that  Colony  to  rescind  her 
Circular  Letter  to  the  other  Assemblies,  was  absolutely  illegal 
and  unconstitutional ;  and  Grenville,  the  originator  of  the 
plan  to  tax  the  Colonists,  agreed  with  him  in  his  opinion. 
Thus  not  only  was  the  refusal  of  Massachusetts  to  rescind  at 
the  arbitrary  mandate  of  Hillsborough  founded  in  legal  and 
natural  justice,  but  they  were  supported  in  their  course  by 
the  finest  intellects  in  England. 

"America  must  fear  you  before  she  can  love  you,"  said  Lord 
North  to  Alderman  Beckford,  who  recommended  a  repeal  of  the  late 

*  "  Vindex/'in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  19,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  227 

act,  and  a  policy  of  moderation  and  kindness.  "  Punishment,"  he 
continued,  "  will  not  be  extended  beyond  the  really  guilty ;  and  if 
rewards  shall  be  found  necessary,  rewards  shall  be  given.  But 
what  we  do,  we  will  do  firmly ;  we  shall  go  through  our  plan,  now 
that  we  have  brought  it  so  near  success.  I  am  against  repealing 
the  last  act  of  Parliament,  securing  to  us  a  revenue  out  of  America. 
I  will  never  think  of  repealing  it,  until  I  see  America  prostrate  at 
my  feet." 

In  uttering  this  threat,  the  Minister  denned  his  policy 
throughout  his  premiership.  Courageous,  good  humored, 
and  apathetic  in  temperament,  he  was  devoted  to  the  royal 
prerogative,  and  was  strict  in  the  performance  of  his  duties. 
Opposed  to  reforms,  and  bitterly  against  concessions  to  the 
Americans,  having  voted  for  the  Stamp  Act  and  against  its 
repeal,  he  was  exactly  the  man  to  blindly  pursue  the  meas- 
ures of  the  headstrong  King,  and  thus,  under  Providence,  to 
bring  about  the  liberty  of  the  Colonies.  It  was  in  Novem- 
ber, 1768,  that  he  was  determined  to  see  "  America  at  his 
feet."  In  November,  1781,  he  was  fated,  as  Prime  Minister, 
to  hear  of  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis,  which  virtually  ended 
the  war  of  independence.  Then  his  self-possession  deserted 
him,  and  he  looked  back  with  horror  and  chagrin  upon  the 
measures  of  his  administration,  and  reluctantly  yielding  to 
a  vote  of  censure  from  the  House  of  Commons  for  his  Amer- 
ican policy  before  and  during  the  war,  the  vanquished  peer 
retired  from  the  Cabinet,  followed  by  the  execrations  of  his 
countrymen. 

But  Parliament  was  now  blind  to  everything  but  the  de- 
termination to  subdue  the  Colonies,  and  Lord  North,  who 
led  the  Ministry,  having  given  his  ultimatum,  the  address  to 
the  King  was  carried  in  both  Houses,  pledging  the  nation  to 
support  his  Majesty  in  all  such  future  measures  as  should  be 
found  requisite  to  enforce  a  due  obedience  to  the  laws,  to  re- 
store the  Coloniul  dependence,  and  "  to  maintain  entire  and 
inviolate  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Legislature  of  Great 
Britain  over  every  part  of  the  British  empire."     The  die 


228  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

was  cast;  and  the  work  of  subjugation  was  to  be  com- 
menced. The  government  was  preparing  to  take  determined 
measures.  Lord  North  demanded  united  action  to  awe  Bos- 
ton, the  head  of  the  rebellion,  into  obedience.  It  was  asked 
by  Grenville,  "  How  do  we  know  parliamentarily  that  Boston 
is  the  most  guilty  of  the  Colonies  ? "  Some  of  the  peers, 
who  were  opposed  to  the  measures,  expressed  their  horror  at 
them,  and  their  deep  sympathy  with  the  Colonists ;  but  the 
vote  in  the  Commons  passed  by  a  majority  of  twenty-seven. 
The  first  step  towards  this  subjugation  of  a  peaceable  and 
loyal  town  was  the  introduction  by  Lord  Hillsborough,  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  of  a  series  of  resolutions  condemning  the 
Assembly  of  Massachusetts,  its  Council,  and  the  September 
convention ;  approving  of  the  military  force,  and  planning  a 
change  in  the  charter  of  the  Province.  Bedford  followed 
with  an  address  to  the  King,  "  to  bring  to  condign  punish- 
ment the  chief  authors  and  instigators  of  the  late  disorders," 
and,  if  sufficient  ground  should  be  seen,  to  put  them  on  trial 
for  treason.  The  resolutions  and  address  were  adopted  al- 
most unanimously.*' 

*  That  these  measures  were  inconsistent  as  well  as  unnecessarily  harsh  is 
especially  apparent  when  we  reflect  upon  the  riots  and  confusion  in  England 
itself  at  this  very  time,  to  quell  which  no  especial  act  was  considered  to  be 
necessary. 

"  Dr.  Franklin  writing  from  London  in  May  of  the  same  year,  says :  "  Even 
this  capital,  the  residence  of  the  King,  is  now  a  daily  scene  of  lawless  riot  and 
confusion :  mobs  patrolling  the  streets  at  noonday ;  some  knocking  down  all 
that  will  not  roar  for  Wilkes  and  liberty;  courts  of  justice  afraid  to  give 
judgment  against  him ;  coal-heavers  and  porters  pulling  down  the  houses  of 
coal-merchants,  that  refuse  to  give  them  more  wages ;  sawyers  destroying  saw- 
mills ;  sailors  unrigging  all  the  outward-bound  ships,  and  suffering  none  to  sail 
till  merchants  agree  to  raise  their  pay ;  watermen  destroying  private  boats  and 
threatening  bridges ;  soldiers  firing  among  the  mobs  and  killing  men,  women, 
and  children ;  which  seems  only  to  have  produced  a  universal  sullenness  that 
looks  like  a  great  black  cloud  coming  on,  ready  to  burst  in  a  general  tempest. 
What  the  event  will  be,  God  only  knows."  And  again  he  writes :  "  I  have 
seen  within  a  year  riots  in  the  country  about  corn ;  riots  about  elections ;  riots 
about  work-houses ;  riots  of  colliers ;  riots  of  weavers ;  riots  of  coal-heavers ; 
riots  of  sawyers  ;  riots  of  Wilkesites ;  riots  of  government  chairmen ;  riots  of 
smugglers ;  in  which  custom-house  officers  and  excisemen  have  been  murdered, 


1768.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  229 

Intimations  of  the  proposed  seizing  of  the  popular  leaders 
had  already  arrived  in  Boston.  It  was  known  that  the 
threatened  calamities  were  the  result  of  the  repeated  misrep- 
resentations by  the  Governor  and  his  underlings.  "  They 
expect  a  voyage  to  England  against  their  inclinations,' '  wrote 
Commodore  Hood ;  and  the  crown  officers  did  not  conceal 
their  exultation  at  the  double  satisfaction  of  having  the  lead- 
ers hanged  for  treason,  and  their  own  safety  provided  for  by 
the  presence  of  troops.  At  the  same  time  that  these  coer- 
cive measures  were  adopted  against  Boston  for  riots  hugely 
exaggerated  by  the  loyalist  writers,  an  actual  spirit  of  insur- 
rection and  riot  was  constantly  manifesting  itself  in  England, 
and  yet  no  troops  were  quartered  upon  the  turbulent  towns. 
But  the  interposition  of  a  wide  ocean,  it  seems,  had  disfran- 
chised Britons,  and  by  residing  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
water  they  had  lost  the  rights  and  privileges  of  Englishmen. 
The  year  was  closing,  and  yet  the  Legislature  remained  dis- 
solved. There  seemed  no  probability  of  relief,  and  a  gloomy 
despondency  settled  upon  the  Province.  But  the  spirit  of 
inquiry  was  abroad.  The  genius  of  liberty  was  not  dead  nor 
asleep.  Arbitrary  power,  indeed,  pressed  heavily  upon  the 
community,  but  there  was  a  fire  beneath  the  surface  and, 
at  any  moment,  there  might  be  an  eruption. 

Meantime  the  troops,  without  an  enemy  to  fight,  were 
standing  proofs  of  the  uselessness  of  their  mission.  The 
fleet,  consisting  of  eight  war  vessels,  commanded  the  harbor ; 
and  the  royal  regiments  had  possession  of  the  only  land 
communication  with  the  town.  Red  coats,  glittering  bay- 
onets, martial  music,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  war  were 
constantly  paraded  in  the  faces  of  the  exasperated  people. 
The  legislative  halls  were  occupied  by  armed  mercenaries, 
and  cannon  pointed  at  the  doors  ;  the  quiet  of  the  Sabbath 
was  disturbed,  and  citizens  were  challenged  at  every  corner 

and  the  King's  armed  vessels  and  troops  fired  at."  But  these  disturbances 
were  at  home,  and  among  privileged  Englishmen.  The  restiveness  of  their 
Colonists  under  oppression  was  another  thing. 


230  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

as  in  time  of  martial  law.  As  the  hatred  between  the  peo- 
ple and  the  troops  daily  increased  in  virulence,  complaints 
were  made  that  numbers  of  the  inhabitants  had  been  in- 
sulted and  arrested,  jostled  in  the  streets,  and  thrust  at 
with  bayonets.  A  merchant  was  struck  down  in  a  coffee- 
house, and  some  of  his  friends,  who  attempted  to  expos- 
tulate, were  roughly  handled.  The  slaves  were  excited 
against  their  masters,  and  the  law  was  openly  violated  in 
innumerable  instances.  Brawls  and  revels  by  night,  and 
outrages  by  day,  characterized  the  life  of  the  soldiers ;  while, 
to  scandalize  the  town  and  corrupt  the  morals  of  the  young, 
hundreds  of  abandoned  women,  who  had  followed  the  army 
from  Europe  to  Halifax,  came  thence  to  Boston.  They  were 
the  most  dissolute  creatures,  and  many  soon  found  their  way 
into  the  alms-house,  and  thus  increased  the  public  burdens. 
To  keep  his  countrymen  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  igno- 
miny of  their  position  under  these  outrages,  Mr.  Adams  lost 
no  opportunity  of  stinging  the  public  mind  to  the  quick 
with  cogent  essays  in  the  newspapers,  which,  among  the 
many  acts  of  tyranny,  had  not  yet  been  suppressed.  His 
object  was  to  have  it  constantly  in  view,  that  the  military 
was  under  the  civil  power,  and  that  the  British  Constitution 
was  violated  by  the  quartering  of  troops  upon  the  people. 
He  demanded  to  know  by  what  right  the  towns-people  were 
constantly  challenged :  — 

"  There  is  something  in  it,"  said  he,  "  which  looks  as  if  the  town 
was  altogether  under  the  government  and  control  of  the  military 
power ;  and  as  long  as  the  inhabitants  are  fully  persuaded  that  this 
is  not  the  case  at  present,  and  moreover  hope  and  believe  that  it 
never  will,  it  has  a  natural  tendency  to  irritate  the  minds  of  all  who 
have  a  just  sense  of  honor,  and  think  they  have  the  privilege  of 
walking  the  streets  without  being  controlled. 

"  I  am  informed  that  not  less  than  nine  gentlemen  of  character, 
some  of  them  of  the  first  families  in  this  Province,  were  stopped  and 
put  under  guard  the  other  evening,  for  refusing  to  submit  to  this 


1768.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  231 

military  novelty;  and,  still  more  alarming,  that  even  one  of  his 
Majesty's  Council  was  stopped  in  his  chariot  in  the  daytime  when 
going  out  of  town,  under  a  flimsy  pretence  that  possibly  he  might 
have  concealed  a  deserter  in  his  chariot,  and  was  treated  with  inso- 
lence. The  honorable  gentleman,  I  dare  say,  felt  his  resentment 
kindle  ;  and  every  one  who  hears  of  so  high-handed  an  insult  must 
feel  anger  glowing  in  his  breast.  I  forbear  to  mention  the  constant 
practice  of  challenging,  as  it  is  called,  the  country  people  when 
passing  and  repassing  upon  their  lawful  business  through  the  gates 
of  the  city,  where  a  guard-house  is  erected  upon  land  belonging  to 

the  public 

"  Are  we  a  garrisoned  town,  or  are  we  not  ?  If  we  are,  let  us 
know  by  whose  authority  and  by  whose  influence  we  are  made  so : 
if  not,  and  I  take  it  for  granted  we  are  not,  let  us  then  assert  and 
maintain  the  honor,  the  dignity,  of  free  citizens,  and  place  the  mili- 
tary where  all  other  men  are,  and  where  they  always  ought  and  will 
be  placed  in  every  free  country,  —  at  the  foot  of  the  common  law  of 
the  land.  To  submit  to  the  civil  magistrate  in  the  legal  exercise  of 
power  is  forever  the  part  of  a  good  subject;  and  to  answer  the 
watchmen  of  the  town  in  the  night  may  be  the  part  of  a  good  citizen, 
as  well  as  to  afford  them  all  necessary  countenance  and  support. 
But  to  be  called  to  account  by  a  common  soldier,  or  any  soldier,  is 
a  badge  of  slavery  which  none  but  a  slave  will  wear. 

"Is  there  any  who  dares  to  say  that  Americans  have  not  the 
rights  of  subjects  ?  Is  Boston  disfranchised  ?  When  and  for  what 
crime  was  it  done  ?  If  not,  is  it  not  enough  for  us  to  have  seen  sol- 
diers and  mariners  forejudged  of  life,  and  executed  within  the  body 
of  the  county  by  martial  law  ?  Are  citizens  to  be  called  upon, 
threatened,  ill-used  at  the  will  of  the  soldiery,  and  put  under  arrest, 
by  pretext  of  the  law  military,  in  breach  of  the  fundamental  rights 
of  subjects,  and  contrary  to  the  law  and  franchise  of  the  land  ?  And 
are  the  inhabitants  of  this  town  still  to  be  affronted  in  the  night,  as 
well  as  the  day,  by  soldiers  armed  with  muskets  and  fixed  bayonets  ? 
Are  these  the  blessings  of  government  ?  Is  this  the  method  to  rec- 
oncile the  people  to  the  temper  of  the  present  administration  of  gov- 
ernment in  this  Province  ?  Will  the  spirits  of  people  as  yet  unsub- 
dued by  tyranny,  unawed  by  the  menaces  of  arbitrary  power,  submit 


232  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

to  be  governed  by  military  force  ?  No !  Let  us  rouse  our  attention 
to  the  common  law,  —  which  is  our  birthright,  our  great  security 
against  all  kinds  of  insult  and  oppression,  —  the  law,  which  when 
rightly  used,  is  the  curb  and  the  terror  of  the  haughtiest  tyrant. 
Let  our  magistrates  execute  the  good  and  wholesome  laws  of  the  land 
with  resolution  and  an  intrepid  firmness,  aided  by  the  posse  comita- 
tus,  the  body  of  the  county,  which  is  their  only  natural  and  legal 
strength,  and  they  will  see  their  authority  revered.  The  boldest 
transgressors  will  then  tremble  before  them,  and  the  orderly  and 
peaceable  inhabitants  will  be  restored  to  the  rights,  privileges,  and 
immunities  of  free  subjects."  * 

In  the  series  of  writings  signed  "  Yindex,"  extending 
through  the  month  of  December,  all  of  far  greater  length 
than  can  be  here  introduced,  Mr.  Adams  continued  to  at- 
tack the  principle  and  practice  of  establishing  military  rule. 
In  his  private  conversations  among  his  friends,  and  wherever 
he  could  meet  any  number  of  his  fellow-townsmen,  he  en- 
deavored to  depict  the  ruin  of  liberty  under  an  armed  force, 
and  to  inspire  them  with  a  sense  of  the  injury  they  were  sus- 
taining. He  held  that  a  standing  army  within  the  kingdom 
in  time  of  peace,  without  the  consent  of  Parliament,  was 
against  the  law ;  that  the  consent  of  Parliament  necessarily 
implied  the  consent  of  the  people,  who  were  always  present  in 
Parliament  either  by  themselves  or  their  representatives ;  and 
that  the  Americans,  as  they  were  not  and  could  not  be  rep- 
resented in  Parliament,  were  therefore  suffering  under  mili- 
tary tyranny  over  which  they  were  allowed  to  exercise  no 
control.     In  one  of  these  essays,  he  says  :  — 

"  It  is  a  very  improbable  supposition  that  any  people  can  long 
remain  free,  with  a  strong  military  power  in  the  very  heart  of  their 
country,  unless  that  military  power  is  under  the  direction  of  the 
people ;  and  even  then  it  is  dangerous.  History,  both  ancient  and 
modern,  affords  many  instances  of  the  overthrow  of  states  and  king- 
doms by  the  power  of  soldiers,  who  were  raised  and  maintained  at 
first  under  the  plausible  pretence  of  defending  those  very  liberties 

*  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  5,  1768. 


1768.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  233 

which  they  afterwards  destroyed.  Even  where  there  is  a  necessity 
of  the  military  power  within  the  land,  which  by  the  way  but  rarely 
happens,  a  wise  and  prudent  people  will  always  have  a  watchful 
and  a  jealous  eye  over  it ;  for  the  maxims  and  rules  of  the  army 
are  essentially  different  from  the  genius  of  a  free  people,  and  the 
laws  of  a  free  government The  whole  continent  of  Amer- 
ica is  charged  by  some  designing  men  with  treason  and  rebellion  for 
vindicating  their  constitutional  and  natural  rights ;  but  I  must  tell 
these  men  on  both  sides  the  Atlantic,  that  no  other  force  but  that 
of  reason  and  sound  argument  on  their  part  ....  will  prevail  upon 
us  to  relinquish  our  righteous  claim.  Military  power  is  by  no 
means  calculated  to  convince  the  understandings  of  men.  It  may 
in  another  part  of  the  world  affright  women  and  children,  and  per- 
haps some  weak  men,  out  of  their  senses,  but  will  never  awe  a  sen- 
sible American  tamely  to  surrender  his  liberty.  Among  the  brutal 
herd,  the  strongest  horns  are  the  strongest  laws ;  and  slaves,  who 
are  always  to  be  ranked  among  the  servile  brutes,  may  cringe  under 
a  tyrant's  brow.  But  to  a  reasonable  being,  one,  I  mean,  who  acts 
up  to  his  reason,  there  is  nothing  in  military  achievement,  any  more 
than  in  knight-errantry,  so  terrifying  as  to  induce  him  to  part  with 
the  choicest  gift  that  Heaven  bestows  on  man."  * 

Again,  in  writing  on  the  same  subject,  in  the  latter  part 
of  December,  he  devotes  a  large  space  in  the  Boston  Gazette 
to  the  danger  of  standing  armies  in  any  country  in  time  of 
peace. 

"  A  standing  army  is  an  army  raised  and  kept  within  the  com- 
munity to  defend  it  against  any  sudden  attacks.  If  it  be  asked  who 
is  to  judge  when  the  community  is  in  danger  of  such  attacks,  one 
would  naturally  answer,  —  the  community  itself.  For  who  can  be 
more  proper  judges  of  it  than  they  for  whose  safety  alone,  and  at 
whose  expense  alone,  they  are  kept  and  maintained?  The  people, 
while  they  enjoy  the  blessings  of  freedom  and  the  security  of  their 
property,  are  generally  early  enough  in  their  apprehension  of  com- 
mon danger,  especially  when  it  is  so  threatening  as  to  require  the 
military  aid ;  and  their  judgment  of  the  necessity  or  expediency  of 
a  standing  army  is,  generally,  at  least  as  honest  as  that  of  their 

*  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  12, 1768. 


234  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [1768,  69. 

superiors.  Indeed,  in  arbitrary  governments,  and,  alas !  how  few  are 
there  in  the  world  that  are  not  so  !  the  people  give  up  the  power 
of  judging  in  this  matter,  as  well  as  in  all  other  matters  of  public 
concern,  to  their  governors,  who  always  sooner  or  later,  instead  of 
governors,  make  themselves  their  masters  and  tyrants,  and  even 
their  executioners  ;  and  this  change  is  commonly  brought  on  by 
the  means  of  standing  armies.  But  in  free  governments  the  people 
have  an  influence  in  public  affairs,  and  they  always  will,  so  far  at 
least  as  to  prevent  their  being  ruined  by  the  avarice,  ambition,  hu- 
mor, caprice,  or  violence  of  one  man  or  a  few  men  whose  interest 
it  may  be  to  ruin  them.  Thanks  be  to  Heaven,  the  government  of 
Great  Britain  has  still  its  proportion  of  a  democracy ;  the  people 
have  their  share  in  the  Legislature,  and  no  law  can  be  made  nor 
any  public  measures  taken,  which  can  effect  their  interest,  without 
their  consent."  * 

*  «  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  26,  1768. 


CHAPTER    XL 

Debates  in  Parliament  on  Colonial  Affairs.  —  Colonel  Barre  defends  the  Col- 
onists.—  Passage  of  Bedford's  Address.  —  The  leading  Patriots  to  be  sent 
to  England  for  Trial.  —  Otis  and  Adams  especially  marked.  —  Adams  at- 
tacks the  Crown  Writers.  —  The  Boston  Press.  —  Newspapers  in  the  last 
Century.  —  Their  Influence  in  shaping  Public  Opinion. — Public  Meeting 
to  vindicate  the  Town.  —  Adams  drafts  a  Petition  to  the  King  and  a  Letter 
to  Isaac  Barre.  —  He  appeals  to  the  Sons  of  Liberty. 

The  debate  on  American  affairs  was  resumed  in  the  House 
of  Commons  in  January  and  February,  1769.  Hillsbor- 
ough's resolutions  and  Bedford's  address  had  passed  the 
Lords  by  twenty-seven  majority ;  and  now  the  masters  of 
English  eloquence  stood  up  in  the  Lower  House  in  defence 
of  American  rights.  Even  Grenville  spoke  against  the 
address,  and  scoffed  at  the  insane  and  unjust  system.  The 
debate  was  long  and  able.  Tho  project  of  extending  the 
act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  to  the  Colonies,  in  order  legally  to 
arrest  and  transport  the  leaders  to  England  to  be  tried  for 
treason,  was  particularly  opposed  by  the  great  champion  of 
America,  Edmund  Burke.  "  Suppose,"  said  he,  "  you  do 
call  over  two  or  three  of  these  unfortunate  men,  what  will 
become  of  the  rest  ?  '  Let  me  have  the  heads  of  the  princi- 
pal leaders,'  exclaimed  the  Duke  of  Alva :  but  these  heads 
proved  hydra's  heads.  Suppose  a  man  brought  over  for 
high  treason ;  if  his  witnesses  do  not  appear,  he  cannot  have 
a  fair  trial.     God  and  nature  oppose  you." 

Barre,Jn  an  eloquent  speech,  denied  that  the  Americans 
were  proper  objects  for  taxation,  and  warned  the  Commons 
that  all  America,  not  merely  a  single  Colony,  was  ripe  for 
revolt.  To  prostrate  America  at  the  feet  of  the  Ministry, 
he  said,  would  prove  no  easy  task ;  and  he  deprecated  the 
spirit  which  would  wish  to  see  a  respectable,  free,  and  hardy 
people  thus  humbled. 


236  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

"  In  such  a  situation,"  said  he,  "  she  would  serve  only  as  a  mon- 
ument of  your  folly.  For  my  part,  the  America  I  wish  to  see  is 
America  increasing  and  prosperous,  raising  her  head  in  graceful  dig- 
nity, with  freedom  and  firmness  asserting  her  rights  at  your  bar, 
vindicating  her  liberties,  pleading  her  services,  and  conscious  of  her 
merit.  This  is  the  America  that  will  have  courage  to  fight  your 
battles,  to  sustain  you  when  hard  pushed  by  some  prevailing  foe, 
and  by  her  industry  will  be  able  to  consume  your  manufactures,  sup- 
port your  trade,  and  pour  wealth  and  splendor  into  your  towns  and 
cities.  If  we  do  not  change  our  conduct  towards  her,  America  will 
be  torn  from  our  side.  I  repeat  it,  unless  you  repeal  this  law,  you 
run  the  risk  of  losing  America." 

Pownall  and  Dowdeswell  were  also  among  the  opponents 
of  the  resolves.  The  former,  who  had  lived  in  the  Colonies, 
knew  the  character  of  the  people,  their  earnest  devotion  to 
their  just  rights,  and  their  loyalty,  which  only  a  long  succes- 
sion of  oppressive  measures  could  destroy.  "  The  people  of 
that  country,"  said  he,  "  and  the  King's  troops  are,  as  it 
were,  set  in  array  against  each  other.  The  sword  indeed 
is  not  drawn,  but  the  hand  is  upon  it.  The  word  for  ac- 
tion is  not  indeed  yet  given,  but  mischief  is  on  tiptoe,  and 
the  slightest  circumstance  would  in  a  moment  throw  every- 
thing into  confusion  and  bloodshed."  He  predicted  that  the 
union  between  Great  Britain  and  North  America  would  be 
broken,  if  some  change  of  policy  did  not  interpose  to  re- 
move this  show  of  military  power.  But  the  resolutions  and 
address  were  both  passed,  and  Boston  was  thenceforth  to  be 
the  special  object  of  British  vengeance. 

The  policy  was  now  to  arrest  and  bring  over  the  accused 
to  England  for  trial ;  and  this  had  been  suggested  by  the  re- 
peated letters  of  Bernard  and  Hutchinson.  Burke  regarded 
this  measure  with  horror.  "  At  the  request  of  an  exasperat- 
ed governor,"  he  cried,  during  the  late  debate,  "  we  are  called 
upon  to  agree  to  an  address  advising  the  King  to  put  in 
force  against  the  Americans  the  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth. 
And  why?    Because  you  cannot  trust  the  juries  of  that 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  237 

country !  Sir,  that  word  must  convey  horror  to  every  feel- 
ing mind.  If  you  have  not  a  part  among  two  millions  of 
people,  you  must  either  change  your  plan  of  government,  or 
renounce  the  Colonies  forever." 

News  had  already  been  received  in  Boston  that  on  the 
arrival  of  the  regiments  from  Ireland,  Cushing,  whose  posi- 
tion as  Speaker  of  the  House  gave  him  especial  prominence 
in  England,  and  sixteen  others,  who  had  been  members  of 
the  convention,  were  to  be  arrested.  Oliver  wrote  to  Eng- 
land, that  he  had  long  entertained  the  opinion,  "if  there 
be  no  way  to  take  off  the  original  incendiaries,  they  will  still 
continue  to  instil  their  poison  into  the  minds  of  the  people 
through  the  vehicle  of  the  Boston  Gazette.' '  That  the  "  tak- 
ing off"  of  the  "  incendiaries  "  was  not  consummated,  was 
owing  to  the  fact,  that  the  most  careful  examination  of  their 
proceedings,  magnified  as  they  were  by  the  letters  of  the 
crown  officers,  revealed  no  acts  of  treason.  De  Grey  and 
Dunning,  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor  General,  had  declared 
that  there  were  not  sufficient  grounds  to  fix  the  charge  of 
treason  upon  any  of  the  persons  named  in  the  papers  laid 
before  them.  The  September  convention,  which  had  been 
specially  misrepresented,  was  particularly  scrutinized,  but 
the  result  was  only  to  excite  the  admiration  of  De  Grey,  to 
see  how  well  the  Americans  were  versed  in  the  crown  law ; 
and  he  doubted  whether  they  had  been  guilty  of  an  overt 
act  of  treason,  but  "was  sure  they  had  come  within  a 
hair's  breadth  of  it."  Bernard  and  Hutchinson,  however, 
continued  to  hunt  up  evidence  against  the  leading  patriots, 
especially  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams.  It  was  on  the  23d  of 
January  that  an  affidavit,  already  quoted,  was  taken  against 
Mr.  Adams,  and  proceedings  were  at  the  time  instituted 
against  Edes  and  Gill,  the  publishers  of  the  Boston  Gazette, 
the  "trumpeters  of  sedition,"  and  "the  authors  of  num- 
berless treasonable  and  seditious  writings."  Hutchinson, 
while  he  pretended  to  be  still  a  friend  of  the  Colonies,  wrote  ( 
secretly  across  the  ocean,  "  there  must  be  an  abridgment  \ 
of  what  are  called  English  liberties."  ^_/ 


238  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Jan. 


The  presence  of  the  troops  started  into  life  a  number  of 
writers  in  defence  of  the  measures  of  government.  One  of 
these  appeared  in  the  Evening  Post,  in  a  series  of  articles 
signed  "  Z.  T.,"  upholding  the  right  of  taxing  the  Colonies, 
;  on  the  ground  that  the  nation  had  protected  the  Americans 
v  fit  great  expense,  and  that,  therefore,  they  should  assume 
their  portion  of  the  public  debt.  Mr.  Adams,  reversing 
the  signature,*  replied  in  the  organ  of  the  patriots,  and  went 
over  the  entire  ground  from  the  commencement  of  the  dif- 
ficulties with  the  mother  country,  taking  up  in  detail  the 
specious  arguments  of  the  crown  writers,  and  logically  refut- 
ing every  statement.  The  essay,  which  covers  a  large  space 
in  the  Gazette,  embraces  every  disputed  point  in  the  con- 
troversy, and  in  its  conclusions  is  unanswerable. 

.  "  Our  writer  says,  that '  if  such  grants  and  privileges  as  are  pleaded 
by  the  Colonists  (such  as  charters,  &c.)  may  ever  exempt  them  from 
paying  such  a  proportion  of  taxes,  it  must  be  concluded  that  the 
empire  is  founded  on  unjust  principles,  which  need  a  reform  in  order 
to  make  an  equality  among  the  subjects.'  But  he  seems  to  be  too 
apt  to  forget  that  the  rights  of  nature,  as  well  as  the  Constitution 
of  Great  Britain,  exempts  the  subjects  from  paying  any  money  at 
all,  upon  any  account,  without  their  consent.  This  is  one  of  the 
principles  upon  which  the  British  empire  is  founded  and  has  stood 
firmly  for  many  ages ;  if  this  writer  thinks  it  needs  a  reform  to 
make  an  equality,  surely  his  proposal,  that  one  part  of  the  empire 
should  consent  that  the  other  should  be  lords  proprietors,  has  no  ten- 
dency to  promote  an  equality  among  the  subjects.  He  tells  us  that 
formerly  the  right  of  taxation  was  in  the  King  only.  I  should 
have  been  glad  if  he  had  pointed  us  to  that  time.  We  know  that 
kings  —  even  English  kings  —  have  lost  their  crowns  and  their 
heads  for  assuming  such  a  right.  'T  is  true  this  strange  claim  has 
occasioned  much  contention,  and  it  always  will  as  long  as  the  peo- 
ple understand  the  great  charter  of  nature  upon  which  Magna  Charta 
itself  is  founded,  —  No  man  can  take  another's  property  from  him 
without  his  consent.  This  is  the  law  of  nature ;  and  a  violation  of 
it  is  the  same  thing,  whether  it  be  done  by  one  man  who  is  called  a 
king,  or  by  five  hundred  of  another  denomination." 

*  "  T.  Z.,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  9,  1769. 


1769.] 


LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  239 


The  government  writers,  who  were  most  likely  some  of 
the  Commissioners  of  Customs,  received  liberal  pay  for  their 
labors ;  and  being  actuated  by  no  higher  motive,  they  were 
not  to  be  convinced  by  justice  or  reason.  The  "  Court  Ga- 
zette," as  the  patriots  termed  the  royalist  organ,  still  sent 
forth  its  articles  to  deceive  the  people  ;  and  Samuel  Adams,  y 
who  has  been  called  "more  than  a  match  for  them  all," 
with  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  question  at  issue,  the 
clearest  intelligence,  and  an  untiring  industry,  met  them  at 
every  point  with  convincing  arguments  and  plain  state- 
ments. 

The  failure  to  find  the  Bostonians  guilty  either  of  sedition 
or  treason  had  spurred  Hutchinson  to  renewed  exertions, 
and  depositions  against  the  leaders  continued  to  be  taken. 
His  object  was  not  unknown  to  the  patriots,  some  of  whom 
publicly  reproached  him  for  his  baseness  as  a  "  public  in- 
former." But  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  in  his  desire  for 
preferment,  was  careless  of  the  means  he  employed.  The 
debates  in  Parliament,  at  the  opening  of  the  session,  had 
been  grossly  misrepresented  by  a  writer  in  the  "  Court  Ga- 
zette." Mr.  Adams,  in  his  reply,  defended  the  conduct  of 
the  town  in  all  its  struggles  against  tyranny,  especially  the 
convention  of  the  previous  year,  exposed  the  infamy  of  the 
crown  informers,  and  set  forth  the  true  condition  of  the 
Province  as  it  should  have  been  stated  to  the  Ministry  and 
Parliament.  The  accusations  of  the  Governor  against  the 
Colony  had  not  been  sustained  by  facts,  on  which  Mr.  Ad- 
ams remarks :  —  *  y 

"  New  vouchers,  we  are  told,  are  called  for  from  authority.  This 
is  no  favorable  symptom  to  the  sudden  and  warm  accusers ;  for  I 
believe  there  are  more  than  one  who  may  find  it  an  Augean  enter- 
prise to  support  their  own  representation.  For  it  is  certainly  be 
yond  human  art  and  sophistry  to  prove  that  British  subjects,  to 
whom  the  privilege  of  possessing  arms  is  expressly  recognized  by 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  who  live  in  a  Province  where  the  law  re- 


* 


"  Shippen,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  30,  1769. 


240  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

quires  them  to  be  equipped  with  arms,  &c,  are  guilty  of  an  illegal 
act  in  calling  upon  one  another  to  be  provided  with  them  as  the  law 
directs.  But  if  some  are  bold  and  base  enough,  where  the  interest 
of  a  whole  country  is  at  stake,  to  penetrate  into  the  secrets  of  the 
human  breast,  to  search  for  crimes,  and  to  impute  the  worst  of  mo- 
tives to  actions  strictly  legal,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  their  ex- 
pediency, it  is  easy  to  recriminate  in  the  same  way ;  and  one  man 
has  as  good  reason  to  affirm  that  a  few,  in  calling  for  a  military 
force,  under  pretence  of  supporting  civil  authority,  secretly  in- 
tended to  introduce  a  general  massacre,  as  another  has  to  assert 
that  a  number  of  loyal  subjects,  by  calling  upon  one  another  to 
be  provided  with  arms,  according  to  law,  intended  to  bring  on  an 

insurrection. 

•  •  •  •  • 

"  But  Boston  l  may  be  deprived  of  all  its  trade,  and  made  a  vil- 
lage.' Sad,  indeed !  And  so  may  New  York  and  all  the  trading 
towns  on  the  American  continent;  and  what  then?  Why  then 
Bristol  and  Liverpool  and  London  itself  may  become  villages  too. 
Was  this  said  in  Parliament,  or  was  the  threatening  moulded  here 
to  excite  ridicule  ?  Could  a  British  politician,  finding  public  credit 
suffering  at  such  a  critical  season  from  the  unsettled  state  of  Amer- 
ica, ever  imagine  that  the  nation  might  be  remedied  by  turning  our 
seaports  into  villages  ?  The  compiler  goes  on  to  inform  us  that 
Governor  Bernard  has  been  spoken  of  with  great  respect.  And  so 
has  Mr.  Otis,  and  compared  to  the  Pyms,  the  Hampdens,  the  Ship- 
pens,  and  to  the  Sir  John  Barnards  of  Great  Britain.     But  poor 

G.  B ,  it  was  judiciously  observed  in  the  House  of  Commons, 

has  had  some  very  uncommon  difficulties  to  contend  with.  Mr.  Otis 
and  his  compatriots  have  doubtless  had  none!  —  no  toils,  no  self- 
denials,  no  threatenings,  no  tempting  baits !  No !  all  the  virtue  is 
on  one  side.  Virtue  was  never  known  to  be  separated  from 
power  or  profit." 

Among  the  patriots  who  stood  boldly  forward  in  these  try- 
ing times,  let  us  not  forget  the  intrepid  Edes  and  Gill,  pub- 
lishers of  that  stanch  vehicle  of  free  speech,  the  Boston 
Gazette.  It  was  now  a  well-established  weekly  newspaper, 
having  been  first  issued  in  1755,  when  it  was  a  half-crown 
sheet  printed  on  two  pages  folio.    For  several  years  this  firm 


\ 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  241 

were  "  printers  to  the  Honorable  House  of  Representatives," 
as  appears  on  the  title-pages  of  the  records  of  that  body. 
The  copartnership  between  the  proprietors  lasted  twenty 
years,  when,  in  1775,  Gill  retired,  and  the  Gazette  was  con- 
tinued by  Edes  until  1798.  Its  venerable  proprietor  died  in 
1803,  in  his  eightieth  year,  worn  out  by  age  and  sickness, 
miserably  poor,  and  neglected  by  those  whose  blessings  he 
had  helped  to  secure.  From  the  commencement  of  the  Rev- 
olution, the  Boston  Gazette  was  the  chosen  mouthpiece  of 
the  patriots.  When  the  attempted  enforcement  of  the  writs 
of  assistance  agitated  the  public  mind  in  1760,  the  columns 
of  the  Gazette  were  headed  with  a  patriotic  device,  which 
remained  there  through  the  long  period  preceding  the  out- 
break of  hostilities  and  through  the  war. 

The  files  which  have  been  preserved  offer  an  interesting 
field  for  the  historian  and  biographer,  and  furnish  a  more 
truthful  picture  of  the  condition  of  Boston,  during  the 
Revolution,  than  can  be  obtained  from  any  other  source. 
Rightly  studied,  its  pages  are  a  history  of  that  time.  The 
proceedings  of  town  meetings,  legislative  state  papers,  pub- 
lic resolves,  political  essays,  and  occasional  narratives  of 
passing  events,  transport  the  reader  back  to  the  last  cen- 
tury, and  bring  the  whole  public  life  of  the  Province  before 
him.  These  time-stained  columns  are  the  same  that  were 
perused  by  the  citizens  of  a  hundred  years  ago ;  and  it  is 
not  difficult*  to  fancy  ourselves  in  the  quaint  old  town,  and 
to  imagine  the  comments  and  discussions  arising  from  the 
foreign  intelligence  and  political  writings  which,  once  a 
week,  it  placed  before  its  readers. 

A  free  press  was  the  just  pride  of  the  Bostonians.  Jeal- 
ous of  their  liberties,  they  turned  to  it  early  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary struggle,  to  make  known  their  grievances,  and 
defend  their  rights.  But  though  an  important  engine  in 
the  cause,  it  was  feeble  compared  with  the  press  of  to-day. 
The  editorial  leaders,  in  which  great  questions  are  now 
handled,  seldom  appeared;  their  place  being  supplied  by 

VOL.    I.  16 


242  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

the  essays  of  occasional  correspondents,  which  occupied  all 
the  available  space,  and  formed  and  directed  public  opinion. 
The  columns  of  the  newspapers,  throughout  the  Revolution- 
ary period,  are  devoid  of  articles  of  general  interest.  Edito- 
rial ability,  as  understood  in  our  day,  was  unknown,  —  the 
communications  being  addressed  "  to  the  printer  "  or  the 
publisher  by  name.  There  were  really,  in  the  present  ac- 
ceptation of  the  term,  no  editors  beyond  the  contributors 
upon  whose  favors  the  influence  and  circulation  of  the  paper 
principally  depended.  The  wide  distance  intervening  be- 
tween populous  centres,  added  to  the  imperfect  roads  and 
irregular  conveyances,  rendered  the  speedy  transmission  of 
news  impossible.  The  journey  from  Boston  to  New  Haven 
occupied  two  or  three  days ;  to  New  York  a  week  or  ten 
days ;  and  to  Philadelphia  eight  or  ten  days.  Northward, 
where  the  roads  were  not  of  the  best,  travelling  was  even 
less  expeditious,  and  with  Europe,  the  sole  communication 
was  by  means  of  not  very  fast  vessels,  unprovided,  of  course, 
with  the  appliances  and  discoveries  in  seamanship  and  nav- 
igation by  which  modern  voyages  are  so  much  shortened. 
Very  late  intelligence  was  therefore  not  to  be  expected  in 
the  newspapers  of  the  last  century.  That  active,  indefati- 
gable personage,  the  reporter,  was  unknown  in  the  New 
England  press,  nor  were  the  services  of  such  a  news-gatherer 
required.  Events  in  small  communities  were  soon  current 
verbally,  and  if  published  in  the  papers,  it  •  was  more 
for  their  political  bearing  beyond  the  theatre  of  their  oc- 
currence, than  to  inform  the  people  in  the  neighborhood. 
Though  the  debates  of  the  House  were  open  to  the  public 
from  1767,  and  the  gallery  appears  to  have  been  generally 
well  attended,  very  few  reports  were  made  of  debates  on  mo- 
mentous questions  ;  and  yet  that  these  questions  were  fully 
discussed  is  shown  by  the  occasional  references  to  the  scenes 
in  the  House  by  the  loyalist  writers.  A  correct  report  of 
the  speeches  of  the  leaders  in  the  Colonial  Assemblies,  from 
the  year  of  the  Stamp  Act  to  the  close  of  the  royal  author- 


1769.|  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  243 

ity,  would  now  be  one  of  the  most  interesting  memorials  of 
a  period  when  the  first  principles  of  American  liberty  were 
developing  themselves  under  the  progressive  tyranny  of  Eng- 
land. There  must  have  been  many  notable  instances  of 
close,  nervous  reasoning,  fervid  debate,  and  flashing  elo- 
quence, which,  if  preserved  in  the  files  of  the  newspapers 
with  a  tithe  of  the  care  now  devoted  to  recording  the  ha- 
rangues of  politicians,  would  throw  open  a  curious  page  of 
our  country's  history. 

The  first  purely  political  newspaper  was  the  Independent 
Advertiser,  of  which  Samuel  Adams  had  been  one  of  the 
conductors  long  prior  to  the  Revolution;  and,  until  then, 
no  journal  in  the  Colonies  had  proclaimed  its  special  cham- 
pionship of  "the  rights  and  liberties  of  mankind."  When 
the  revenue  acts  aroused  the  Colonists  to  their  danger,  three 
newspapers  were  published  in  Boston.  The  Gazette,  al- 
ready alluded  to,  had  been  established  some  ten  years.  The 
Evening  Post,  published  weekly  by  Thomas  and  John  Fleet, 
was  an  independent  paper,  holding  its  columns  opeii  to 
both  political  parties,  —  a  privilege  of  which  the  loyalists 
availed  themselves  to  assail  the  patriot  writers.  The  latter, 
at  one  time,  occasionally  sent  articles  to  it,  perhaps  believing 
that  the  professed  independence  of  character  leaned  towards 
the  side  of  liberty.  The  Massachusetts  Gazette,  sometimes 
known  as  "  Draper's,"  or  the  "  Court  Gazette,"  was  "  pub- 
lished by  authority,"  in  conjunction  with  the  News  Letter, 
which,  at  the  commencement  of  the  troubles,  espoused  the 
cause  of  the  people.  Draper's  paper  was  the  organ  of  the 
administration,  and  had  the  printing  of  the  acts  and  procla- 
mations and  the  other  government  business.  The  ablest 
writers  in  the  royal  cause  contributed  to  its  columns,  and 
the  whole  course  of  the  paper  was  in  support  of  government 
officers  and  measures.  The  Chronicle,  which  was  pub 
lished  from  1767  to  1770,  was  of  the  same  stamp.  The 
Boston  Gazette  thus  remained  for  some  time  the  sole  cham- 
pion of  American  freedom  in  the  town.     Its  publishers 


244  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Feb. 

were  among  the  special  objects  of  ministerial  displeasure, 
and  proceedings  were  instituted  against  them  as  the  "  trum- 
peters of  sedition. "  Hutchinson  complained  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend  in  England  of  the  influence  of  the  Gazette.  "  The 
misfortune  is,"  said  he,  "  that  seven  eighths  of  the  people 
read  none  but  this  infamous  paper,  and  so  are  never  unde- 
ceived." * 

In  the  summer  of  1770,  Isaiah  Thomas  and  his  former 
master,  Fowle,  proprietor  of  the  Independent  Advertiser, 
commenced  the  publication  of  the  Massachusetts  Spy,  which, 
after  a  year's  course  as  an  independent  paper,  came  out 
for  the  liberty  party,  received  a  liberal  support  from  the 
Whigs,  and  was  a  vehicle  for  powerful  writers  against  the 
administration  until  1775,  when,  a  few  days  previous  to  the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  Thomas  removed  his  press  and  types 
to  Worcester,  where  the  Spy  was  again  issued  for  about 
a  year.  The  Essex  Gazette,  the  publication  of  which  was 
commenced  at  Salem  in  the  summer  of  1768,  was  also  a 
stanch  patriot  paper,  and  occasionally  received  contributions 
from  able  pens  in  Boston;  but  the  Boston  Gazette  was 
the  favorite  in  the  capital,  where  its  columns  were  regarded 
as  oracular.  Its  publication-room  in  Queen  Street  was  the 
resort  of  the  most  distinguished  political  writers.  James 
Otis,  Samuel  Adams,  Joseph  Warren,  Josiah  Quincy,  John 
Adams,  Dr.  Cooper,  and  others  who  were  personally  prom- 
inent without  being  contributors  to  the  press,  frequented 
the  office,  and  perhaps  glanced  over  the  foreign  journals  on 
the  arrival  of  a  packet  from  England,  prior  to  their  regular 
publication,  or  it  may  be  read  the  proofs  of  their  own  writ- 
ings. 

During  the  month  of  February,  the  subject  of  America 
continued  to  be  the  theme  of  discussion  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Mr.  Rose  Fuller  moved  to  recommit  the  ad- 
dress, foreseeing  the  dreadful  evils  to  the  nation  which  must 
ensue  from  an  attempt  to  collect  a  revenue  from  the  Colo- 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Aug.  12,  1770. 


1769.] 


LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  245 


nies.  "  As  for  money,"  said  he,  "  all  that  sum  might  be 
collected  in  London  at  less  than  half  the  expense."  Phipps 
asserted  that  the  proposed  measures  were  more  calculated 
to  raise  than  quell  a  rebellion ;  and  Pownall,  with  the  whole 
strength  of  his  reasoning  and  eloquence,  combated  the 
course  pursued  against  the  injured  Americans.  But  the 
efforts  of  these  wise  and  humane  statesmen  were  unavail- 
ing. Fuller's  motion  was  lost  by  an  overwhelming  major- 
ity :  and  it  was  decided  that  the  patriots  should  be  brought 
over  to  be  tried  for  treason  before  a  special  commission. 
The  Bostonians,  conscious  of  the  justice  of  their  cause, 
freely  discussed  their  rights  in  the  press. 

"  In  the  days  of  the  Stuarts,"  said  Samuel  Adams,  "  it  was  looked 
upon  by  some  men  as  a  high  degree  of  profaneness  for  any  sub- 
ject to  inquire  into  what  was  called  the  mysteries  of  government. 
James  the  First  thundered  his  anathema  against  Dr.  Cowell  for  his 
daring  presumption  in  treating  of  those  mysteries,  and  forbade  his 
subjects  to  read  his  books  or  even  to  keep  them  in  their  houses. 
In  those  days  passive  obedience,  non-resistance,  the  divine,  heredi- 
tary right  of  kings,  and  their  being  accountable  to  God  alone,  were 
doctrines  generally  taught,  believed,  and  practised.  But  behold  the 
sudden  transition  of  human  affairs !  In  the  very  next  reign  the 
people  assumed  the  right  of  free  inquiry  into  the  nature  and  end  of 
government,  and  the  conduct  of  those  who  were  intrusted  with  it. 
Laud  and  Strafford  were  brought  to  the  block,  and,  after  the  hor- 
rors of  a  civil  war,  in  which  the  best  blood  of  the  nation  was  spilt 
as  water  upon  the  ground,  they  finally  called  to  account,  arraigned, 
adjudged,  condemned,  and  even  executed  the  monarch  himself!  and 
for  a  time  held  his  son  and  heir  in  exile.  The  two  sons  of  Charles 
the  First,  after  the  death  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  reigned  in  their  turns ; 
but,  by  copying  after  their  father,  their  administration  of  govern- 
ment was  grievous  to  their  subjects  and  infamous  abroad.  Charles 
the  Second,  indeed,  reigned  till  he  died ;  but  his  brother  James  was 
obliged  to  abdicate  the  throne,  which  made  room  for  William  the 
Third  and  his  royal  consort  Mary,  the  daughter  of  the  unfortunate 
James.  This  was  the  fate  of  a  race  of  kings  bigoted  to  the  greatest 
degree  to  the  doctrines  of  slavery,  and  regardless  of  the  natural, 


246  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

inherent,  divinely  hereditary,  and  indefeasible  rights  of  their  sub- 
jects.* 

No  one  doubted  in  Boston  that  the  military  force  had 
been  brought  there  by  the  false  representations  of  Bernard 
and  Hutchinson.  Indeed,  copies  of  some  of  their  letters 
were  received  from  Mr.  Bollan,  placing  their  guilt  beyond 
question.  On  the  13th  of  March  a  town  meeting  was  called 
to  see  what  further  measures  ought  to  be  adopted  to  vindi- 
cate the  town  from  the  aspersions  cast  upon  it ;  and  Otis, 
Samuel  Adams,  Cushing,  Dana,  Warren,  John  Adams,  and 
Samuel  Quincy  were  appointed  a  committee  for  that  pur- 
pose. They  reported  on  the  4th  of  April  a  petition  and  ad- 
dress to  his  Majesty,  which  was  forwarded  with  a  letter  to 
Barr6,  with  the  request  of  the  town  that  he  should  present 
it  as  soon  as  it  reached  his  hands.  Several  of  Bernard's 
and  Hood's  letters,  which  Bollan  had  obtained  through 
Beckford,  were  read  at  this  meeting.  In  their  representa- 
tion the  town  complained  of  the  Governor's  refusal  to  in- 
form them  of  his  statements  against  them,  though  their 
selectmen  had  respectfully  petitioned  him  to  that  purpose. 
They  had  thus  been  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  charges  which 
had  brought  the  troops,  contrary,  as  they  conceived,  to  the 
act  of  Parliament.  They  therefore  prayed  not  only  that  the 
troops  might  be  removed,  but  that  his  Majesty  would  be 
pleased  to  order  that  the  town  might  be  favored  with  Gov- 
ernor Bernard's  letter,  the  memorials  of  the  Commissioners, 
and  other  like  papers.  They  wished  to  know  what  charges 
were  brought  against  them,  and  desired  to  be  heard  by 
counsel.  The  letter  to  Barr6,  and  fragments  of  the  peti- 
tion, are  found  as  original  rough  drafts  among  the  papers 
of  Samuel  Adams,  in  his  handwriting.  The  letter  defends 
at  great  length  the  course  of  the  Council  after  the  riots  of 
the  previous  year,  and  vindicates  the  letter  to  Lord  Hills- 
borough.    It  is  indorsed  "  For  Mr.  Otis  [Moderator  of  the 

*  "E.  A.,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Eeh.  27,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  247 

meeting]  ;   to  be  signed  and  transmitted  to  Isaac  Barre*, 
Esq." 

But  petitions  were  useless,  and  it^is  surprising  that  the 
Colonists  should  have  attempted  them  after  1768.  Desire 
for  reconciliation  and  unshaken  loyalty  were,  however,  still 
the  prevailing  sentiments.  Even  the  respectful  remon- 
strance of  New  York  was  rejected,  —  a  vote  not  to  receive  it 
having  passed  the  Commons  at  the  instance  of  Lord  North, 
despite  the  renewed  appeals  of  Barre*,  who  warned  them 
that  the  whole  continent  of  America  would  rise  in  arms,  and 
the  Colonies  be  lost  to  England  forever.  Ignorance  of  the 
true  bearing  of  the  subject  and  a  mistaken  national  pride 
ruled  the  hour,  and  blindly  led  the  King,  Ministry,  and  Par- 
liament to  the  consummation  of  a  policy  which,  in  a  few 
years,  fatally  realized  the  predictions  of  the  wisest  and  great- 
est on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Almost  at  the  very  time 
that  far-seeing  English  statesmen  were  warning  the  nation 
of  the  inevitable  result  of  these  coercive  measures,  Samuel 
Adams,  on  the  anniversary  of  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
which  was  still  duly  celebrated,  thus  addressed  his  country- 
men :  — 

"TO  THE  SONS  OF  LIBERTY. 

"  Dearly  Beloved,  — 

"  Revolving  time  hath  brought  about  another  anniversary  of  the 
repeal  of  the  odious  Stamp  Act,  —  an  act  framed  to  divest  us  of  our 
liberties  and  to  bring  us  to  slavery,  poverty,  and  misery.  The  res- 
olute stand  made  by  the  Sons  of  Liberty  against  the  detestable  pol- 
icy had  more  effect  in  bringing  on  the  repeal  than  any  conviction  in 
the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  of  the  injustice  and  iniquity  of  the 
act.  It  was  repealed  from  principles  of  convenience  to  Old  Eng- 
land, and  accompanied  with  a  declaration  of  their  right  to  tax  us ; 
and  since,  the  same  Parliament  have  passed  acts  which,  if  obeyed 
in  the  Colonies,  will  be  equally  fatal.  Although  the  people  of 
Great  Britain  be  only  fellow-subjects,  they  have  of  late  assumed  a 
power  to  compel  us  to  buy  at  their  market  such  things  as  we  want 
of  European  produce  and  manufacture  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  have 


248  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

taxed  many  of  the  articles  for  the  express  purpose  of  a  revenue ; 
and,  for  the  collection  of  the  duties,  have  sent  fleets,  armies,  commis- 
sioners, guardacostas,  judges  of  admiralty,  and  a  host  of  petty  offi- 
cers, whose  insolence  and  rapacity  are  become  intolerable.  Our 
cities  are  garrisoned ;  the  peace  and  order  which  heretofore  digni- 
fied our  streets  are  exchanged  for  the  horrid  blasphemies  and  out- 
rages of  soldiers  ;  our  trade  is  obstructed ;  our  vessels  and  cargoes, 
the  effects  of  industry,  violently  seized ;  and,  in  a  word,  every  species 
of  injustice  that  a  wicked  and  debauched  Ministry  could  invent  is 
now  practised  against  the  most  sober,  industrious,  and  loyal  people 
that  ever  lived  in  society.  The  joint  supplications  of  all  the  Colo- 
nies have  been  rejected ;  and  letters  and  mandates,  in  terms  of  the 
highest  affront  and  indignity,  have  been  transmitted  from  little  and 
insignificant  servants  of  the  Crown  to  his  Majesty's  grand  and  au- 
gust sovereignties  in  America. 

"  These  things  being  so,  it  becomes  us,  my  brethren,  to  walk  wor- 
thy of  our  vocation,  to  use  every  lawful  mean  to  frustrate  the 
wicked  designs  of  our  enemies  at  home  and  abroad,  and  to  unite 
against  the  evil  and  pernicious  machinations  of  those  who  would 
destroy  us.  I  judge  that  nothing  can  have  a  better  tendency  to  this 
grand  end  than  encouraging  our  own  manufactures,  and  a  total  dis- 
use of  foreign  superfluities. 

"  When  I  consider  the  corruption  of  Great  Britain,  their  load  of 

debt,  their  intestine  divisions,  tumults,  and  riots,  their  scarcity  of 

provisions,  and  the  contempt  in  which  they  are  held  by  the  nations 

about  them ;  and  when  I  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  the  state  of 

the  American  Colonies  with  regard  to  the  various  climates,  soils, 

produce,  rapid  population,  joined  to  the  virtue  of  the  inhabitants,  —  I 

cannot  but  think  that  the  conduct  of  Old  England  towards  us  may 

be  permitted  by  Divine  Wisdom,  and  ordained  by  the  unsearchable 

providence  of  the  Almighty,  for  hastening  a  period  dreadful  to 

Great  Britain. 

"A  Son  of  Liberty.* 
"Providence,  March  18th,  1769." 

This  address  was  found  early  in  the  morning  of  the  18th 
of  March,  posted  on  the  Liberty  Tree  of  Providence,  and 

*  Providence  Gazette  for  March  18,  1769;  and  Boston  Gazette  for  March 
27,  1769.     Bancroft,  VI.  267. 


1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  249 

another  in  the  most  public  part  of  the  town.  It  was  sent 
by  Mr.  Adams  to  Providence  for  the  annual  celebration,  and 
appeared  on  the  same  morning  in  the  Providence  Gazette. 

Throughout  the  other  Colonies  the  flame  of  liberty  burned 
steadily  and  brightly.  The  deepest  sympathy  was  mani- 
fested for  the  oppressed  Bostonians.  The  British  claims  of 
power  had  been  everywhere  denied.  Georgia  sided  with 
the  policy  of  Massachusetts  and  Virginia ;  New  York  had 
asserted  its  legislative  rights ;  and  in  Philadelphia,  at  a 
meeting  in  honor  of  the  late  successes  of  General  Paoli,  the 
patriot  Corsican,  the  Massachusetts  Ninety-two,  the  town 
of  Boston,  Mr.  Cushing,  Mr.  Otis,  and  Mr.  Adams  were 
toasted. 

The  plans  for  reducing  the  refractory  Americans  to  obedi- 
ence were  modified  by  the  visible  injuries  brought  upon 
commerce  through  the  non-importation  agreements.  It  was 
seen  that  the  stringent  enactments  against  the  Colonists 
were  injuring  only  the  British  merchants.  The  importations 
from  England  into  America  decreased  greatly  in  a  single 
year.  The  total  produce  of  the  new  taxes  for  the  first  year 
was  less  than  one  tenth  of  the  attendant  military  expenses, 
while  the  actual  revenue,  after  deducting  the  full  expendi- 
tures, amounted -to  only  a  pitiful  sum.  Even  now,  the 
headstrong  Ministry  would  not  have  yielded  an  inch,  had 
not  the  loud  complaints  of  the  merchants  finally  caused  Lord 
Hillsborough  to  lay  aside  for  a  while  the  plan  of  altering  the 
charter  of  Massachusetts,  and  to  send  to  General  Gage  dis- 
cretionary orders  to  withdraw  the  troops  from  Boston.  But 
the  fatal  assertion  of  the  right  of  taxation  remained,  and  the 
troops  still  insulted  the  people  with  their  presence. 

Mr.  Adams  entered  the  lists  about  this  time  in  defence  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Chauncy,  who  had  been  bitterly  attacked  in  a 
New  York  paper  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Seabury  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  that  city.*  The  controversy  seems  to  have 
grown  out  of  some  inadvertent  statement,  alleged  to  have 

*  "A  Layman,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  March  27,  1769. 


250  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March,  Apr. 

been  made  by  Dr.  Chauncy  in  one  of  his  religions  pam- 
phlets, respecting  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel.  Dr.  Chauncy,  besides  being  an  earnest  patriot,  was, 
like  most  of  the  Bostonians,  an  uncompromising  enemy  of 
the  plan  of  establishing  an  episcopate  in  America ;  and  it 
was  probably  in  one  of  his  publications  on  this  subject  that 
he  gave  offence  to  Mr.  Seabury.  In  retaliation  the  Boston 
minister  was  assailed  in  no  dignified  terms,  and  Mr.  Adams 
became  the  champion  of  his  friend ;  for  the  two  were  on 
the  most  intimate  terms.  At  some  length  he  mercilessly 
analyzed  the  production  of  the  New  York  writer,  who,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Adams,  "  had  managed  his  cause  with  the 
heart,  though  he  had  evidently  discovered  that  he  wanted 
the  head,  of  a  Jesuit."  The  clergyman  is  handled  with 
sarcastic  severity,  yet  with  due  regard  to  his  cloth.  Dr. 
Chauncy  himself,  probably,  did  not  exceed  his  friend  in  his 
decided  opposition  to  all  schemes  for  the  appointment  of 
bishops  in  America. 

Mr.  Adams  soon  after  attacked  General  Gage  and  Gov- 
ernor Bernard  for  their  misrepresentations  of  the  town  to 
the  Ministry,  and,  by  a  concise  narration  of  the  facts,  showed 
the  untruthfulness  of  those  statements.  "  No  man's  sta- 
tion ,"  said  he,  "  ought  to  exempt  him  from  being  called 
upon  by  a  loyal  people,  either  to  make  good  or  retract  his 
charge  against  them." 

"  When  contests  run  high,  the  proverb,  however  homely  it  may 
be,  will  be  allowed  by  impartial  men  to  be  just,  that i  one  story  is 
good  till  another  is  told.'  If  good  King  David  was  in  haste  .when 
he  once  said  that  all  men  were  liars,  yet  surely  the  General  has 
studied  mankind  more  thoroughly  than  to  suppose  it  altogether  im- 
possible for  a  governor  of  a  province  to  misrepresent  and  abuse  the 
people,  even  to  the  ear  of  majesty  itself.  The  history  of  his  own 
times  may  confute  such  an  opinion ;  and  should  it  finally  appear,  by 
the  statements  of  facts  sent  home  in  the  last  ship  by  his  Majesty's 
Council  and  the  town  of  Boston,  that  Governor  Bernard  is  an  in- 
stance of  the  truth  of  it,  I  would  only  ask,  upon  a  candid  supposition 


1769.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  251 

that  the  General  grounded  his  letters  upon  what  such  a  Governor 
told  him,  what  reparation  he  can  make  without  publicly  acknowl- 
edging his  mistake  ?  If  the  General  has  characterized  the  town  and 
Province  upon  his  own  observation,  I  appeal  to  the  candid  world, 
whether  the  bare  affirmation  of  a  gentleman,  unsupported  by  any 
evidence,  can  be  deemed  sufficient  to  blast  the  reputation  of  a  Prov- 
ince." * 

*  "A  Bostonian,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  April  24,  1769. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

The  Colonial  Policy  modified.  —  The  late  Duties  taken  off,  save  as  to  the  Arti- 
cle of  Tea.  —  The  Eight  of  Taxation  still  claimed.  —  Governor  Bernard 
recalled.  —  Meeting  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature.  —  Adams  drafts  a 
Eemonstrance  against  the  Presence  of  the  Troops.  —  The  Governor  adjourns 
the  Legislature  to  Cambridge.  —  The  Virginia  Resolutions  are  received.  — 
The  Assembly  prepare  similar  ones,  and  readopt  those  of  Adams,  written 
in  1765.  —  He  publishes  them  in  the  Gazette.  —  The  Consequences.  —  Ad- 
ams's Opinion  of  the  partial  Repeal  of  the  Revenue  Acts.  —  Progress  of 
the  Non-importation  Schemes.  —  Governor  Bernard  sails  for  England,  and 
is  created  Baronet  of  Nettleham. 

The  principle  of  representation,  which  had  been  shame- 
fully violated  in  England  in  the  rejection  of  Wilkes  by  Par- 
liament, was  producing  as  wide-spread  an  excitement  there 
as  in  the  Colonies.  The  fact  that  the  opposition  to  the  rev- 
enue law  was  extending  throughout  the  American  continent 
began  at  last  to  warn  the  Cabinet  when  petitions  and  remon- 
strances were  unavailing ;  and  on  the  ground  that  the  duty 
on  the  British  manufactures  of  glass,  paper,  and  painters' 
colors  was  contrary  to  the  true  principles  of  commerce,  it 
was  repealed,  leaving  the  one  article  of  tea  as  an  assertion 
of  the  right*  of  taxation.  A  circular  was  sent  by  Lord  Hills- 
borough to  the  Colonies,  intimating  that  the  duties  would 
be  taken  off  as  a  measure  of  expediency  from  all  articles 
enumerated  in  the  late  act,  excepting  tea.  Bernard,  who 
was  at  length  seen  to  be  ill  suited  to  conciliate  the  people 
among  whom  he  had  been  placed,  was  directed  to  return  to 
England,  —  the  Ministry  having  promised  the  English  mer- 
chants, so  obnoxious  had  his  name  become,  that  he  should 
not  be  employed  again  in  the  Colonies ;  although,  to  indorse 
his  measures  as  those  of  the  administration  which  he  rep- 
resented, he  was  created  a  baronet. 

This  evidence  of  the  royal  approbation  of  Bernard's  course 


May,  1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  253 

gave  great  offence  in  Boston,  and  showed  the  patriots  that 
they  had  little  to  hope  from  the  miscalled  clemency  of  the 
King  and  Ministry.  In  a  sarcastic  address  to  his  Excel- 
lency, Mr.  Adams  held  up  the  appointment  to  ridicule,  and 
pointed  out  the  injuries  done  to  the  Province  by  the  newly 
made  baronet. 

"Your  promotion,  sir,  reflects  an  honor  on  the  Province  itself; 
an  honor  which  has  never  been  conferred  upon  it  since  the  thrice- 
happy  administration  of  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  of  precious  memory, 
who  was  also  a  baronet.  Nor  have  the  unremitted  endeavors  of 
that  very  amiable  and  truly  patriotic  gentleman  to  render  the  most 
substantial  and  lasting  services  to  this  people,  upon  the  plan  of  a 

wise  and  uncorrupt  set  of  m rs,  ever  been  paralleled  till  since 

you  adorned  the  ch — r Pity  it  is  that  you  have  not  a  pen- 
sion to  support  your  title.  But  an  Assembly  well  chosen  may  supply 
that  want  even  to  your  wish.  Should  this  fail,  a  late  letter,  said  to 
have  strongly  recommended  a  tax  upon  the  improved  lands  of  the 
Colonies,  may  be  equally  successful  with  the  other  letters  of  the  like 
nature,  and  funds  sufficient  may  be  raised  for  the  use  and  emolu- 
ment of  yourself  and  friends,  without  a  dependence  upon  a  '  mili- 
tary establishment  supported  by  the  Province  at  Castle  William.' 

"  I  am,  sir,  with  the  most  profound  respect,  and  with  the  sincerest 
wishes  for  your  furthenexaltation,  the  most  servile  of  all  your  tools. 

"A.Toby."* 

The  relief  promised  in  the  circular  was  only  partial. 
The  principle  of  taxation  remained  the  same,  whether  one 
or  a  hundred  articles  were  taxed.  The  implied  concession, 
therefore,  only  the  more  plainly  discovered  the  ultimate  de- 
termination to  raise  a  revenue  from  the  Colonies.  If  the 
duties  were  removed  from  certain  articles  merely  as  a  mat- 
ter of  expediency,  and  one  article  was  reserved  for  taxation 
to  maintain  the  right,  that  reserve  covered  everything  pos- 
sessed by  the  Americans.  The  denial  of  a  right  of  taxation 
had  lain  at  the  bottom  of  the  contest  from  the  commence- 
ment.   In  1764,  Samuel  Adams  had  asserted  that  if  taxes 

*  Boston  Gazette  for  May  1,  1769. 


254  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

could  be  legally  levied  in  any  shape,  the  right  could  be  made 
to  extend  to  land  and  its  produce,  and,  in  short,  to  all  prop- 
erty. The  whole  people  had  now  become  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  the  theory  that  taxation  and  representation  are 
inseparable.  To  continue  one  article,  therefore,  as  dutiable 
argued  a  hopeless  ignorance  of  the  American  character  and 
feelings,  which  must  have  convinced  far-seeing  men  that 
England  would  not  yield  without  a  resort  to  force. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  said  Samuel  Adams  about  this  time,  "  that  some 
of  the  most  valuable  privileges  of  this  Province  should  prove  so 
great  difficulties  to  Governor  Bernard,  but  can  by  no  means  wish 
them  annihilated  for  the  sake  of  giving  him  ease.  I  never  heard 
that  they  were  quite  so  offensive  to  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  can- 
not think  they  ever  will  be  to  so  much  as  one  of  his  successors. 
The  Province  has  been,  and  may  be  again,  quietly  and  happily  gov- 
erned, while  these  terrible  difficulties  have  subsisted  in  their  full 
force.  They  are,  indeed,  wise  checks  upon  power  in  favor  of  the 
people ;  but  power,  vested  in  some  men,  can  brook  no  check.  To 
assert  the  most  undoubted  rights  of  human  nature  and  of  the  British 
Constitution  they  deem  faction  ;  and  having  embarrassed  a  free  gov- 
ernment by  their  own  impolitic  measures,  they  fly  to  the  military 
power,  which,  with  equal  justice  and  spirit,  was  said,  in  the  late  de- 
bate in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  be  *  the  last  resource  of  ignorant 
despotism/  But  force  is  no  very  suitable  means  of  changing  the 
sentiments  of  the  people ;  it  is  rather  adapted  to  rivet  and  confirm 
them.  Arms  ought  to  be  very  cautiously  employed,  even  against 
faction,  which  they  have  often  increased  rather  than  quelled.  The 
present  uneasiness  in  America  has  been  falsely  and  insolently  called 
by  this  odious  name,  Can  any  man  suppose  the  almost  universal 
complaints  of  a  people  to  deserve  this  appellation  ?  As  well  might 
the  general  uneasiness  that  introduced  the  Revolution  by  William 
the  Third,  and  that  settled  the  succession  in  the  illustrious  House  of 
Hanover,  be  called  a  faction."  * 

When  Massachusetts  had  been  nearly  a  year  without  a 
Legislature,  the  Governor  issued  writs  in  the  name  of  the 
King,  calling  a  session  of  the  General  Court  under  the  usual 

*  "  Shippen,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  30,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  255 

charter  provisions.  The  election  for  Representatives,  on  the 
5th  of  May,  resulted  in  the  choice  of  Otis,  Cushing,  Samuel 
Adams,  and  Hancock,  who  received  each  more  than  five 
hundred  votes  out  of  five  hundred  and  eight  that  were  cast. 
The  selectmen  had  waited  upon  General  Mackay,  who  com- 
manded in  Boston,  and  desired  him  to  withdraw  his  soldiers 
from  the  town  during  the  election.  The  General  replied 
that  he  had  no  authority  to  remove  the  troops,  but  would 
confine  them  to  their  barracks.  This  was  not  entirely  satis- 
factory, but  it  was  something  to  know  that  even  this  degree 
of  respect  to  the  elective  franchise  could  be  legally  exacted. 
Three  days  after  the  election,  the  town,  through  John  Ad- 
ams, instructed  their  Representatives  to  require  the  removal 
of  the  troops,  to  maintain  freedom  of  debate,  to  oppose  the 
raising  of  money  for  the  payment  of  the  troops,  and  to  make 
diligent  inquiry  for  Bernard's  letters  misrepresenting  the 
town  to  the  Ministry.* 

The  troops  had  arrived  in  September  of  the  previous  year, 
and  after  the  prorogation  of  the  Assembly,  so  that  no  oppor- 
tunity had  occurred  for  legislative  remonstrance  against 
their  presence.  It  was  customary  on  assembling  to  first 
elect  a  Clerk,  who,  being  sworn,  received  the  votes  for 
Speaker,  and  declared  the  choice.  On  the  31st  of  May  the 
members,  as  soon  as  they  were  sworn,  made  it  their  instant 
business  to  oppose  the  breach  of  their  privileges,  and  re- 
quested the  removal  of  the  troops. 

"  An  armament  by  sea  and  land,  investing  the  metropolis,  and  a 
military  guard  with  cannon  pointed  at  the  very  door  of  the  State 
House,  where  this  Assembly  is  held,  is  inconsistent  with  that  dig- 
nity as  well  as  that  freedom  with  which  we  have  a  right  to  deliber- 
ate, consult,  and  determine We  have  a  right  to  expect  that 

your  Excellency  will,  as  his  Majesty's  representative,  give  the  ne- 
cessary and  effectual  orders  for  the  removal  of  the  above-mentioned 
forces,  by  sea  and  land,  out  of  this  port  and  the  gates  of  the  city, 
during  the  session  of  the  said  Assembly."  f 

*  Boston  Gazette,  May  15,  1769.  t  Journal  of  the  House  for  1769. 


256  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May,  June, 

The  remonstrance,  which  was  written  by  Samuel  Adams, 
as  two  drafts  in  his  autograph  indicate,  was  in  pursuance  of 
that  of  the  town  at  the  late  election ;  but  the  Governor  re- 
fused where  the  military  commander  had  conceded,  and 
waived  the  subject  by  denying  that  he  had  any  authority 
over  the  ships  or  troops,  and  affirmed  that  he  could  give  no 
orders  for  their  removal.*  On  the  following  day,  after  dis- 
approving of  no  less  than  eleven  Councillors,  he  briefly 
reminded  the  House  to  be  diligent  in  the  transaction  of 
general  business ;  his  whole  course  indicating  a  haughty 
disinclination  to  enter  into  any  discussion  of  rights  and 
privileges.  A  committee,  consisting  of  Otis,  Adams,  Haw- 
ley,  Hancock,  Preble,  and  Warren,  was  appointed  to  con- 
sider the  Governor's  last  message.  They  reported  on  the 
second.  Their  draft  was  not  accepted,  and  the  same  com- 
mittee were  directed  to  prepare  an  answer  to  the  Governor's 
denial  of  any  authority  to  remove  the  troops.  This  subject 
was  under  consideration  from  day  to  day,  until  the  thir- 
teenth, when  the  answer  was  reported,  that  the  King  was 
the  supreme  executive  power  through  all  parts  of  the  Brit- 
ish empire,  and  that  the  Governor  of  the  Province,  being 
the  King's  lieutenant  and  captain-general  and  commander-in 
chief,  in  as  full  and  ample  a  manner  as  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
of  Ireland  or  any  other  of  his  Majesty's  lieutenants,  it  in- 
dubitably followed  that  all  officers,  civil  and  military,  within 
the  Colony  were  subject  to  the  order,  direction,  and  control 
of  his  Excellency.  The  injustice  and  illegality  of  a  military 
government  in  the  Province  is  then  discussed  at  length. f 
The  Governor  thereupon  adjourned  the  Legislature  to  Cam- 
bridge, on  the  ground  that  as  the  House  refused  to  proceed 
to  business  while  virtually  under  military  duress,  they  could 
urge  no  such  objection  to  the  place  whither  he  removed 
them.f  Almost  at  the  same  time  that  Bernard  had  refused 
to  remove  the  troops,  because  he  lacked  the  authority,  he 
was  corresponding  with  General  Gage  in  New  York  on  the 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  168.        t  Ibid.,  p.  169.         %  Ibid.,  p.  171. 


1769.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  257 

subject,  and,  with  the  advice  of  Hutchinson  and  Oliver,  gave 
it  as  his  opinion  that  the  removal  of  the  troops  would  have 
very  dangerous  consequences,  and  prove  ruinous  to  the 
cause  of  the  Crown,  though  he  thought  that  perhaps  one 
regiment  at  the  Castle  and  another  in  the  town  might  be 
sufficient.  And  this  was  when  Gage,  who  had  received  dis- 
cretionary power,  had  written  to  Bernard  for  his  opinion 
as  to  whether  it  would  be  safe  to  effect  a  total  removal. 
While  cannon  remained  pointed  at  the  doors  of  the  State 
House,  the  Assembly  had  refused  to  proceed  with  their  busi- 
ness. But  as  if  in  defiance  of  their  honest  objections,  the 
very  night  after  the  adjournment  to  Cambridge,  the  cannon 
were  taken  away.*  Such  unworthy  rancor  could  not  but 
generate  the  bitterest  feelings.  The  authority  of  the  Gov- 
ernor to  hold  an  Assembly  in  any  other  place  than  Boston 
had  been  disputed  by  the  House  in  1728 ;  and  when,  after- 
wards, instructions  from  England  were  urged  as  a  reason 
for  the  continued  session  at  Cambridge,  a,  long  controversy 
was  caused  by  the  refusal  of  the  House  to  proceed  to  busi- 
ness under  any  such  mandate.  In  the  present  instance, 
the  Assembly  went  to  Cambridge,  protesting,  however, 
against  being  thus  made  to  give  way  to  armed  force,  and 
obliged  to  assemble  away  from  the  ancient  and  usual  place. 
They  soon  after  replied  —  Samuel  Adams  again  answering 
for  the  House  —  to  the  Governor's  message  urging  them  to 
hasten  their  proceedings,  to  save  time  and  money :  — 

1  No  time  can  be  better  employed  than  in  the  preservation  of 
the  rights  derived  from  the  British  Constitution,  and  insisting  upon 
points  which,  though  your  Excellency  may  consider  them  as  non- 
essential, we  esteem  its  best  bulwarks.  No  treasure  can  be  better 
expended  than  in  securing  that  true  old  English  liberty  which  gives 
a  relish  to  every  other  enjoyment."  f 

Bernard  had  meanwhile  received  his  recall  to  England,  in 
accordance  with  the  new  policy  of  the  Cabinet ;  and  as  this 

*  Message  of  the  House  (Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  173). 
t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  173. 
vol.  i.  17 


258  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

was  the  season  for  the  annual  granting  of  the  Governor's  sal- 
ary by  the  Assembly,  as  stipulated  by  the  charter,  his  Excel- 
lency informed  the  House  of  his  removal  and  approaching 
voyage,  and  urged  upon  them  his  support,  intimating  that 
he  would  join  in  no  legislative  business  until  his  demand  for 
a  year's  salary  in  advance  had  been  complied  with.  But  the 
House  refused  to  pay  for  services  which,  as  they  said,  they 
had  no  reason  to  expect  would  ever  be  performed,  as  they 
believed  he  would  not  be  continued  in  office ;  and  remind- 
ing him  that  he  had  been  paid  to  August  next,  expressed 
their  willingness  to  "  support  the  dignity  of  government " 
(quoting  Bernard's  own  words  in  his  demand  for  salary) 
when  his  Majesty  should  be  pleased  to  appoint  another  Gov- 
ernor. Towards  the  close  of  the  last  year's  Assembly,  a 
committee,  including  Otis,  Adams,  Hancock,  and  Bowers, 
had  been  appointed  to  prepare  a  petition  to  the  King  for  the 
removal  of  Bernard.  The  prorogation  prevented  a  report ; 
but  on  the  27th  of  the  present  month,  after  a  lapse  of  a  year 
within  two  days,  the  Committee  on  the  State  of  the  Province 
submitted  a  petition  to  his  Majesty,  in  which,  after  setting 
forth  the  Governor's  falsifications,  they  humbly  entreat  that 
his  Excellency  may  be  forever  removed  from  the  government 
of  the  Province.  The  petition  was  presented  by  the  agent 
in  the  following  September,  with  a  request  for  further  time 
to  obtain  proofs  against  the  late  Governor.  He  was  allowed 
until  February,  when  the  agent  asked  for  a  continuation. 
Bernard  presented  a  counter  petition,  and  the  hearing  took 
place  on  the  28th  of  February,  1770,  before  the  Council,  who 
dismissed  the  petition,  with  the  opinion  that  its  charges  were 
groundless,  vexatious,  and  scandalous.* 

Early  in  the  session  the  noble  resolves  of  Virginia  had 
been  received,  as  passed  by  that  Assembly  on  the  16th  of 

*  The  Governor  published  his  defence  in  pamphlet  form,  a  copy  of  which  is 
found  among  Mr.  Adams's  papers,  the  margins  completely  filled  with  notes  in 
his  handwriting,  evidently  preparatory  to  publication.  But  the  misrepresen- 
tations of  Bernard  were  sufficiently  exposed  by  Samuel  Adams  subsequently 
in  the  "  Appeal  to  the  World." 


1769.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  259 

May.  They  were  communicated  to  the  House  by  the  Speak- 
er, and  must  have  been  received  with  the  warmest  emotions 
of  pleasure  by  those  who  knew  how  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  a  union  of  the  Colonies  on  questions  affecting  their  gen- 
eral welfare.  A  committee  "  to  consider  the  state  of  tho 
Province  "  seems  to  have  been  in  existence  for  several  ses- 
sions. It  was  renewed  each  year,  and,  of  course,  included 
the  leading  members.  Mr.  Adams,  on  the  19th  of  June, 
was  specially  added  to  this  committee  ;  *  and  a  few  days  later 
they  reported  a  series  of  resolutions,  embodying  word  for 
word  three  of  those  of  Virginia  on  taxation,  intercolonial 
correspondence,  and  trial  by  jury  of  the  vicinage.  Going 
back  to  the  admirable  platform  laid  down  four  years  previ- 
ously by  Samuel  Adams,  as  the  basis  for  the  Colonial  legisla- 
tion, they  resolved :  — 

"  That  this  House  do  concur  in  and  adhere  to  the  resolutions  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  year  one  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  sixty-five,  and  particularly  in  that  essential  principle,  that 
no  man  can  be  justly  taxed  by,  or  bound  in  conscience  to  obey  any 
law  to  which  he  has  not  given  his  consent  in  person  or  by  his  rep- 
resentative." t 

In  this  resolution,  says  Hutchinson,  J  "  was  more  fully 
expressed  than  had  ever  been  before  the  sense  of  the  House 
that '  no  laws,'  made  by  any  authority  in  which  the  people  had 
not  their  representatives,  could  be  obligatory  on  them."  The 
resolutions  of  1765  asserted  nearly  as  much,  though  not  so 
directly ;  but  decided  expressions  at  that  time  did  not  carry 
with  them  such  weight  and  significance  with  the  Ministry 
as  now,  when  the  legal  opposition  to  parliamentary  oppres- 
sion had  been  construed  into  open  rebellion,  requiring  to  be 
met  with  an  armed  force. 

There  were  now  four  regiments  in  Boston,  whose  useless- 

*  Journal  of  the  House  for  1769. 

t  For  this  resolution,  as  originally  reported,  see  Boston  Gazette,  July  3, 1769. 

J  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  241. 


260  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [July, 

ness  among  a  peaceable  population  was  so  apparent,  that  or- 
ders came  from  the  Ministry  for  the  removal  of  at  least  two 
of  them  to  Halifax.  Hutchinson  says  that  one  of  these  had 
already  sailed,  and  the  other  was  embarking,  when  the  re- 
solves of  the  House  were  published  in  the  Boston  Gazette  of 
July  3d,  having  been  sent  to  the  printers  by  Mr.  Adams.* 
These  had  passed  unanimously  in  a  full  House,  —  one  hun- 
dred and  nine  members  being  present.  Their  appearance 
in  the  Gazette  was  made  an  excuse  by  the  Governor,  in  a 
consultation  with  Commodore  Hood,  to  detain  this  regiment, 
lest  that  the  other  Assemblies  would  adopt  the  resolutions ; 
and  an  express  was  sent  to  General  Gage  at  New  York  for  in- 
structions. Many  took  alarm  at  this,  and  the  publication  of 
the  resolves  was  stopped  in  papers  where  they  had  not  yet 
appeared ;  another  express  was  sent  to  overtake  and  recall 
the  first,  or  to  acquaint  the  General  that  the  difficulty  was 
removed  ;  and  the  House,  on  a  revision  of  their  resolutions, 
altered  the  obnoxious  one,  which  reads  on  the  journals :  — 

"  Resolved,  as  the  opinion  of  this  House,  that  the  sole  right  of 
imposing  taxes  on  the  inhabitants  of  this,  his  Majesty's  Colony  of 
the  Massachusetts  Bay,  is  now,  and  ever  hath  been,  legally  and  con- 
stitutionally vested  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  lawfully  con- 
vened according  to  the  ancient  and  established  practice,  with  the 
consent  of  the  Council,  and  of  his  Majesty,  the  .King  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, or  his  Governor  for  the  time  being."  f 

The  alteration  by  the  House  having  removed  the  appre- 
hensions of  the  royalists,  the  other  regiment  sailed  for  Hali- 
fax, leaving  the  Fourteenth  and  Twenty-ninth  quartered  up- 
on the  town.  The  ill-feeling  between  them  and  the  people 
increased,  and  affrays  were  frequent.  Mr.  Adams  contin- 
ually reminded  his  friends  that  these  mercenaries  were 
amendable  to  the  laws  of  the  Province,  —  officers  as  well  as 

privates.     "  It  was   soon  found,''  says  Hutchinson,  "  that 

* 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  242. 

t  Journal  of  the  House,  July  7,  1769.     Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  176. 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  261 

prosecutions  of  soldiers  for  a  breach  of  law  were  as  easily 
carried  on  as  against  any  other  persons ;  and  that  all  re- 
ports against  them  more  easily  obtained  credit.' '  * 

"  Soldiers,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  "  are  used  to  obey  the  absolute  com- 
mands of  their  superiors  ;  it  is  death  for  them  in  the  field  to  dispute 
their  authority  or  the  rectitude  of  their  orders  ;  and  sometimes  they 
may  be  shot  upon  the  spot  without  ceremony.  The  necessity  of 
things  makes  it  highly  proper  that  they  should  be  under  the  abso- 
lute control  of  the  officer  who  commands  them,  who  saith  unto  one 
come,  and  he  cometh,  and  unto  another  go,  and  he  goeth.  Thus, 
being  inured  to  that  sort  of  government  in  the  field  and  in  time  of 
war,  they  are  too  apt  to  retain  the  same  idea  when  they  happen  to 
be  in  civil  communities  and  in  a  time  of  peace ;  and  even  their  offi- 
cers, being  used  to  a  sort  of  sovereignty  over  them,  may  sometimes 
forget  that  when  .quartered  in  cities  they  are  to  consider  themselves 
and  their  soldiers  in  no  other  light  than  as  a  family  in  the  commu- 
nity, —  numerous,  indeed,  but  like  all  other  families  and  individuals, 
under  the  direction  of  the  civil  magistrate  and  the  control  of  the 
common  law.  Like  them  they  are  to  confine  their  own  rules  and 
maxims  within  their  own  circle  ;  nor  can  they  be  supposed  to  have 
a  right  or  authority  to  oblige  the  rest  of  the  community  or  any  indi- 
viduals to  submit  to  or  pay  any  regard  to  their  rules  and  maxims, 
any  more  than  one  family  has  to  obtrude  its  private  method  of  econ- 
omy upon  another. 

It  is  of  great  importance,  and  I  sincerely  conceive  it  ought  to  be 
the  first  care  of  the  community,  when  soldiers  are  quartered  among 
them,  by  all  means  to  convince  them  that  they  are  not  to  give  law, 
but  to  receive  it.  It  is  dangerous  to  civil  society  when  the  military 
conceives  of  itself  as  an  independent  body,  detached  from  the  rest  of 
society,  and  subject  to  no  control.  And  the  danger  is  greatly  in- 
creased, and  becomes  alarming,  when  society  itself  yields  to  such  an 
ill-grounded  supposition.  If  this  should  be  the  case,  how  easy  would 
it  be  for  the  soldiers,  if  they  alone  should  have  the  sword  in  their 
hands,  to  use  it  wantonly,  and  even  to  the  great  annoyance  and  ter- 
ror of  the  citizens,  if  not  to  their  destruction.  What  should  hinder 
them,  if  once  it  is  a  given  point  that  society  has  no  law  to  restrain 
them,  and  they  are  disposed  to  do  it  ?    And  how  long  can  we  im- 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  241. 


262  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [July, 

agine  it  would  be,  upon  such  a  supposition,  before  the  tragical  scene 
would  begin  ?  —  and  especially  if  we  consider  further  how  difficult  it 
is  to  keep  a  power  in  its  nature  much  less  formidable  and  confess- 
edly limited  within  its  just  bounds  ?  That  constitution  which  ad- 
mits of  a  power  without  a  check  admits  of  a  tyranny ;  and  that 
people  who  are  not  always  on  their  guard  to  make  use  of  the  rem- 
edy of  the  constitution,  when  there  is  one,  to  restrain  all  kinds  of 
power,  and  especially  the  military,  from  growing  exorbitant,  must 
blame  themselves  for  the  mischief  that  may  befall  them  in  conse- 
quence of  their  inattention ;  or,  if  they  do  not  reflect  on  their  own 
folly,  their  posterity  will  surely  curse  them  for  entailing  upon  them 
chains  and  slavery."  * 

The  session  of  the  Legislature  was  drawing  towards  a 
close,  and  Bernard  met  with  a  refusal  whenever  he  entreated 
the  Assembly  to  advance  him  a  year's  unearned  salary. 
They  assured  him  of  their  satisfaction  that  his  Majesty  had 
been  pleased  to  order  a  true  state  of  the  Province  to  be  laid 
before  him ;  "for  we  have,"  said  they, "  an  abundant  reason 
to  be  assured  that  when  his  Majesty  shall  be  fully  acquainted 
with  the  great  and  alarming  grievances  which  his  truly  loyal 
subjects  here  have  suffered  through  your  administration,  and 
the  injury  they  have  suffered  in  their  representation,  he  will, 
in  his  great  clemency  and  justice,  frown  upon  and  forever 
remove  from  his  trust  all  those  who,  by  wickedly  informing 
his  ministers,  have  attempted  to  deceive  even  his  Majesty 
himself."  t 

The  Governor  next  demanded,  on  the  authority  of  the 
Billeting  Act,  the  amount  of  expenditures  incurred  by 
quartering  the  troops  on  the  Province.  Samuel  Adams 
again  replied  for  the  committee  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
After  proving  that  the  Governor  and  Council  were  power- 
less to  draw  money  from  a  Colonial  treasury,  and  laying 
bare  the  infamy  of  the  act,  the  answer  concludes :  — 

"  And  if  the  present  system  of  measures  should  be  much  further 

*  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  12,  1768. 
t  Journal  of  the  House  for  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  263 

pursued,  it  will  soon  be  very  difficult,  if  possible,  to  distinguish  the 
case  of  widows  and  orphans  in  America,  plundered  by  infamous  in- 
formers, from  those  who  suffered  under  the  administration  of  the 
most  oppressive  of  the  Roman  provinces  at  a  period  when  that  once 
proud  and  haughty  republic,  after  having  subjugated  the  finest  king- 
doms in  the  world,  and  drawn  all  the  treasures  of  the  East  to  im- 
perial Rome,  fell  a  sacrifice  to  the  unbounded  corruption  and  venal- 
ity of  its  grandees.  But,  of  all  the  new  regulations,  the  Stamp  Act 
not  excepted,  this  under  consideration  is  the  most  excessively  un- 
reasonable. For,  in  effect,  the  yet  free  representatives  of  North 
America  are  called  upon  to  repay  of  their  own  and  their  constitu- 
ents' money  such  sum  or  sums  as  persons  over  whom  they  can  have 
no  check  or  control  may  be  pleased  to  expend !  As  representa- 
tives, we  are  deputed  by  the  people,  agreeable  to  the  royal  charter 
and  laws  of  this  Province.  By  that  charter,  and  the  nature  of  our 
trust,  we  are  only  empowered  to  *  grant  such  aids/  and  '  levy  such 
taxes  for  his  Majesty's  service  as  are  reasonable' ;  of  which,  if  we 
are  not  free  and  independent  judges,  we  can  no  longer  be  free  rep- 
resentatives, nor  our  constituents  free  subjects.  If  we  are  free 
judges,  we  are  at  liberty  to  follow  the  dictates  of  our  own  under- 
standing, without  regard  to  the  mandates  of  another ;  much  less  can 
we  be  free  judges,  if  we  are  but  blindly  to  give  as  much  of  our  own 
and  our  constituents'  substance  as  may  be  commanded  or  thought  fit 
to  be  expended  by  those  we  know  not.  Your  Excellency  must 
therefore  excuse  us  in  this  express  declaration,  that  as  we  cannot 
consistently  with  our  honor  or  interest,  and  much  less  with  the  duty 
we  owe  our  constituents,  so  we  shall  never  make  provision  for  the 
purposes  in  your  several  messages  above  mentioned."  * 

Bernard  was  now  repulsed  at  every  point.  His  haughty 
bearing  and  supercilious  airs  were  thrown  away  on  the  As- 
sembly, who  despised  him  for  his  mean  treachery  and  peev- 
ish cowardice.  In  his  attempt  to  obtain  a  year's  salary  for 
merely  nominal  services,  he  had  been  foiled  by  the  sturdy 
determination  of  the  House,  and  "  this  answer,"  Hutchinson 
observes  condolingly,  "  was  just  what  his  friends  had  pre- 
dicted," who  had  advised  him  against  communicating  his 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  186. 


264  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

recall  to  the  House.  He  had  attempted  to  coerce  them  by 
threatening  a  refusal  of  his  assent  to  any  act  which  was  not 
preceded  by  a  grant  of  the  advance  salary ;  and  they  replied, 
"  we  have  a  just  right  to  expect  that  your  Excellency  will 
give  some  assent  to  all  such  resolves  and  acts  that  may  be 
laid  before  you  as  will  be  for  the  interest  of  the  people  and 
the  real  service  of  the  Crown."  He  had  passed  by  their  mes- 
sage at  the  opening  of  the  session  with  a  brevity  amounting 
to  insolence,  but  coolly  reminded  them  that  the  business  of 
the  Province  was  in  arrears. 

"  We  agree  with  you,  sir,"  they  answered,  "  that  the  business  of 
the  Province  is  got  into  such  an  arrear  that  it  will  require  the  ut- 
most diligence  to  get  it  done  within  the  usual  time  generally  allotted 
to  this  session.  Who  brought  the  Province  under  this  difficulty, 
your  Excellency  can  be  at  no  loss  to  determine.  Had  the  Assem- 
bly been  called  in  the  fall  of  the  year  past,  there  would  have  been 
no  cause  of  such  complaint." 

These  replies  are  from  the  joint  answers  of  both  Houses 
to  his  opening  speech.  His  last  letter  to  Lord  Hillsborough 
scarcely  conceals  his  chagrin  and  rage. 

"  On  Tuesday,  July  4th,"  he  says,  "  the  committee  of  both  Houses 
presented  a  joint  answer  to  my  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  session. 
The  barefaced  chicanery  and  falsity  of  this  writing,  as  well  as  the 
style,  which  is  well  known,  make  it  evident  it  was  wrote  by  Adams, 
and  yet  it  was  sent  to  the  Council  to  originate  with  them.'* 

To  the  last  reply  of  the  House,  refusing  absolutely  to  pro- 
vide for  the  support  of  the  troops  with  the  people's  money, 
Bernard  responded  with  a  threat  to  lay  their  conduct  before 
the  King,  when  he  immediately  prorogued  the  Court "  to  the 
usual  time  of  its  meeting  for  the  winter  session. " 

The  circular  to  the  Colonies,  from  the  Earl  of  Hillsbor- 
ough, having  arrived,  with  the  proposition  to  repeal  the  du- 
ties on  all  articles  but  tea,  which  was  reserved  to  save  the 
right,  the  merchants  of  Boston  held  a  meeting  on  the  26th 
of  July,  to  express  their  dissatisfaction  with  the  terms  of  the 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  265 

repeal.  The  duties  had  been  taken  off  from  glass,  paper,  and 
colors,  as  being  "  contrary  to  the  true  principles  of  com- 
merce "  ;  but  while  the  one  article  of  tea  was  left  for  taxa- 
tion, the  pernicious  principle  still  remained.  Hutchinson 
says  of  these  merchants'  meetings,  that  from  early  in  1768, 
others,  not  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits,  had  mixed  with 
them,  and  he  names  James  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams  as  es- 
pecially influential  in  obtaining  their  resolutions.*  In  the 
present  instance,  it  was  voted  unanimously  that  the  removal 
of  the  duties  from  certain  specified  articles  would  by  no 
means  relieve  the  trade  from  its  difficulties,  and  was,  as  they 
apprehended  it,  a  measure  intended  only  to  quiet  the  manu- 
facturers in  Great  Britain,  and  prevent  the  fitting  up  of  those 
manufactures  in  the  Colonies.  It  was  also  voted  to  strictly 
adhere  to  the  agreement  entered  into  in  August  last,  and  send 
no  orders  for  any  goods  contrary  to  said  agreements,  unless 
all  the  revenue  acts  were  repealed. f  As  before,  certain  arti- 
cles were  excepted,  which  it  was  thought  might  be  imported, 
without  in  any  measure  interfering  with  the  intent  and  design 
of  the  agreement.  The  better  to  enforce  this,  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  town  were  recommended  to  make  no  purchase 
from  violators  of  the  agreement,  and  the  names  of  the  recu- 
sant importers  were  published.  Two  principal  merchants, 
whose  greed  exceeded  their  patriotism,  were  visited  by  a 
committee  appointed  by  the  townspeople  to  consider  the  acts 
of  trade,  and  compelled  to  sign  an  agreement  to  sell  none  of 
their  goods  until  the  expiration  of  the  time  fixed  upon  for 
non-importation.  Among  those  who  refused  to  submit  to 
such  measures  were  a  son  of  Bernard  and  two  sons  of 
Hutchinson,  all  of  whom  were  expecting  to  reap  handsome 
profits  from  the  distresses  of  the  country.  Hutchinson  him- 
self, as  charged  by  Hancock  at  a  public  meeting  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  was  engaged  in  importation  with  his  sons.     To  defeat 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  201. 

t  Resolutions  adopted  at  the  merchants'  meeting  of  July  26,  reported  in  the 
Boston  Gazette  for  July  31,  1769. 


266  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

their  designs,  a  paper  was  carried  from  house  to  house 
throughout  the  town,  and  was  almost  unanimously  signed, 
not  to  purchase  of  them. 

Similar  means  were  resorted  to  in  the  other  Colonies, 
where  the  insidious  nature  of  the  reserved  right  of  taxation 
was  fully  understood. 

"  The  Colonies,"  thus  Mr.  Adams  wrote  in  the  public  press,  "have 
since  had  a  temporary  relief  from  the  alternative  before  mentioned 
(of  resistance  or  slavery),  by  the  public-spirited  proposal  of  the  mer- 
chants in  the  several  governments  to  withdraw  their  commercial 
connections  with  the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  Great  Britain  ; 
which  is  esteemed  by  all  judicious  and  well-disposed  persons  as  a 
noble  sacrifice  of  their  own  private  rights,  and  a  well-chosen  expe- 
dient for  the  recovery  of  the  public  rights  of  their  country.  It  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  this  salutary  measure  should  be  violently 
opposed  by  the  cabal  and  their  abandoned  instruments." 

This  was  intended  to  apply  to  Bernard  particularly,  who, 
as  it  afterwards  appeared,  had  written  to  the  Ministry  that 
the  signers  in  Boston  did  not  intend  to  comply  with  the 
agreement,  and  that  there  were  still  remaining  enough  of 
the  most  reputable  merchants,  non-subscribers,  to  defeat  the 
scheme,  even  if  the  subscribers  were  to  keep  their  promise. 
He  displayed  his  malignity  to  the  last,  and  having  done  his 
best  to  ruin  the  Province,  and  to  reap  all  possible  personal 
benefit  from  its  destruction,  took  his  departure  on  the  last 
day  of  July  for  England.  He  left  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
Hutchinson  to  administer  the  government,  of  whom  he  wrote, 
that  he  "well  understood  his  system";*  and,  as  events 
proved,  Hutchinson,  who  was  the  superior  of  his  predecessor 
in  all  mental  acquirements,  was  precisely  the  man  to  inflame 
the  growing  dissatisfaction  of  the  people  against  the  mother 
country.  The  occasion  of  Bernard's  departure  was  made  a 
public  gala-day.  Bells  were  rung,  flags  were  hoisted,  can- 
non fired  from  the  wharves,  and  a  huge  bonfire  kindled  upon 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  303. 


1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  267 

Fort  Hill.  "  He  was  to  have  sent  home  whom  he  pleased," 
said  the  Boston  Gazette  in  the  following  week  ;  "  but  the  die 
being  cast,  poor  Francis  Bernard  was  the  rogue  to  go  first.' ' 
By  the  same  vessel  which  carried  Bernard  to  England, 
Mr.  Adams  wrote  to  the  agent,  sending  him  the  petition  of 
the  House  for  the  removal  of  the  Governor  from  his  position 
forever,  and  also  a  letter  on  the  same  subject,  signed  by  the 
Speaker.  He  concludes  with  the  following  allusion  to  Ber- 
nard's standing  with  the  people  of  the  Province :  — 

u  Such  a  measure  unanimously  voted  in  a  full  House,  consisting 
of  one  hundred  and  nine  members,  forty  of  whom  by  the  charter 
make  a  quorum,  is  sufficient  to  justify  what  I  wrote  you  formerly, 
—  that  I  thought  it  impossible  he  should  ever  recover  the  affections 
of  the  people.  Indeed,  it  never  appeared  to  me  that  the  conciliat- 
ing their  affections  was  any  part  of  his  view.  If  he  had  had  this 
in  contemplation,  he  would  never  have  attached  himself  to  a  small 
party,  of  which  the  people,  even  the  better  sort  of  them,  had  the  most 
contemptible  idea.  Whether  the  Governor  herein  discovered  that  he 
had  conceived  a  deep-rooted  prejudice  against  the  people,  or  that  he 
was  totally  ignorant  of  the  only  method  to  secure  his  own  happiness 
and  promise  his  Majesty  real  service  in  the  Province,  I  will  not 
pretend  to  say.  This,  I  believe,  must  be  acknowledged  by  all, 
that  the  surest  refuge  of  a  monarch  himself  is,  under  God,  in  the 
bosom  of  his  subjects."* 

Bernard  arrived  safely  in  England  ;  and  though  he  never 
returned  to  America,  he  retained,  for  upwards  of  a  year,  the 
title  of  Governor  of  Massachusetts.  For  nine  years  he  had 
ruled  the  Province,  and  in  that  time  had  been  the  chief  in- 
strument to  prejudice  the  Ministry  against  the  Colonies. 
His  name  was  a  byword  and  the  detestation  of  every  honest 
American  until  long  after  the  War  of  Independence ;  and 
even  the  title  which  rewarded  his  machinations  against  the 
people,  whom  he  should  have  tried  to  protect  and  conciliate, 
was  a  matter  of  derision,  and  served  only  to  perpetuate  his 
infamy. 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Dennys  Deberdt,  July  31,  1769. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

Lieutenant-Governor  HutchinsOn. — His  Character.  —  Assumes  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Province.  —  Anniversary  of  the  Stamp  Act.  —  Patriotic  Cele- 
bration.—  Samuel  Adams's  Disregard  of  Wealth.  —  His  Scanty  Means  of 
Support.  —  His  House  in  Purchase  Street.  —  Economy  and  Thrift  of  his 
"Wife. — James  Otis  and  the  Commissioners.  —  The  Affray  at  the  British 
Coffee  House.  —  Adams  supports  the  Cause  of  his  Friend  in  the  Press.  — 
He  opposes  London  Tradesmen  arriving  to  violate  the  Non-importation 
Agreements.  —  Hutchinson  and  his  Sons  prevented  from  selling  Tea. 

Hutchinson  was  now  at  the  head  of  affairs  in  the  Prov- 
ince. Under  other  circumstances,  his  name  might  have 
been  recorded  among  the  most  honorably  distinguished  of 
New  England ;  but  his  timid,  nervous  temper  unfitted  him 
for  the  momentous  times  of  the  Revolution.  "  Born  and 
bred  in  the  Province,"  he  yet  failed  to  understand  the  char- 
acter of  his  countrymen,  in  whose  cause  he  had  no  faith  ;  and 
he  believed,  from  the  first,  that  the  power  of  England  would 
at  any  time  be  exerted  to  force  the  patriots  into  submission. 
A  coward  by  nature,  he  lacked  the  firmness  to  make  his  real 
opinions  known  ;  and  while  he  was  persistently  advising  the 
sending  of  troops,  the  abridgment  of  the  people's  liberties, 
and  a  general  system  which  would  enslave  them,  he  did  not 
scruple  to  deny  his  secret  correspondence,  and  repeatedly 
asserted  that  his  letters  were  u  full  of  tenderness  for  the 
Province.' ■  Samuel  Adams  saw  through  his  character  long 
before  the  Revolution,  and  marked  him  as  the  most  danger- 
ous man  in  the  country.  His  sole  objects  were  the  acquisi- 
tion of  riches,  and  to  gain  the  approbation  of  the  great  and 
powerful,  to  attain  which  the  sacrifice  of  the  liberties  of 
his  country  and  the  lives  of  her  best  citizens  was  accounted 
as  nothing.  That  fatal  voluminous  letter-book,  which  was 
found  after  his  departure  for  England,  is  a  perpetual  record 


Aug.,  1769.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  269 

of  his  treachery,  meanness,  and  falsehood.  An  author,  and 
careful  of  his  style  when  addressing  the  great,  he  wrote  the 
first  draft  of  his  correspondence  in  rough  notes,  which,  when 
digested  and  corrected,  he  transcribed  in  a  fair  hand.  These 
original  drafts,  which  are  in  a  perfect  state  of  preservation, 
reveal  in  every  page  his  hostility  to  his  native  Province. 
He  repeatedly  begs  that  his  letters  may  be  kept  secret,  and 
then  artfully  recommends  a  variety  of  plans  to  subvert  the 
popular  liberties  and  to  transport  the  principal  "  incendia- 
ries "  to  England  for  trial.  Among  his  low  tricks  to  deceive 
the  people  was  the  writing  of  letters  favorable  to  the  Prov- 
ince, addressed  to  influential  persons  in  England,  which  he 
would  hand  round  to  be  read,  but  which  were  never  sent  to 
their  alleged  destination.  He  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  in 
New  England,  and  his  History  of  Massachusetts  placed  him 
among  the  first  of  her  authors.  He  had  shown  zeal  and  in- 
tegrity at  an  earlier  time  in  several  public  capacities,  was 
an  upright  judge  of  grave  deportment,  and  an  industrious 
legislator.  It  was  when  the  great  issues  of  the  Revolution 
came  up,  and  men  were  summoned  to  take  sides,  that  he  be- 
came at  once  the  enemy  of  the  Province,  the  destroyer  of 
his  own  fortunes,  and  a  principal  means  by  which  England 
lost  her  Colonies. 

The  anniversary  of  the  outbreak  against  the  Stamp  Act  was 
this  year  celebrated  with  great  display,  the  14th  of  August 
being  "  the  day  of  the  union  and  firmly  combined  associa- 
tion of  the  '  True  Sons  of  Liberty.'  "  *  The  people  having 
assembled  at  eleven  o'clock  at  Liberty  Tree,,  a  number  of 
patriotic  toasts  were  drunk,  when  the  Sons  repaired  to  Dor- 
chester, where,  three  hundred  and  fifty  in  number,  they  dined 
at  Robinson's  Liberty-Tree  Tavern  with  their  invited  guests, 
among  whom  were  Mr.  Dickinson,  brother  of  the  author  of 
the  celebrated  Farmer's  Letters,  and  Joseph  Reed  of  Phila- 
delphia, with  whom  Samuel  Adams  became  acquainted  and 
conversed.     John  Adams,  who  was  present,  says  in  his  diary : 

*  Boston  Gazette  for  August  21,  1769. 


270  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

"  We  had  two  tables  laid  in  the  open  field  by  the  barn,  with 
between  three  and  four  hundred  plates,  and  an  awning  of 
sail-cloth  overhead,  and  should  have  spent  a  most  agreeable 
day,  had  not  the  rain  made  some  abatement  of  our  pleas- 
ures." *  Public  celebrations  such  as  these  were  among  the 
most  efficient  methods  adopted  by  the  patriots  to  keep  alive 
and  disseminate  the  fire  of  liberty.  John  Adams  says,  that 
"  their  promoters  were  James  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams,"  and 
adds,  "  they  tinge  the  minds  of  the  people  ;  they' impregnate 
them  with  the  sentiments  of  liberty ;  they  render  the  people 
fond  of  their  leaders  in  the  cause,  and  averse  and  bitter 
against  all  opposition."  Such  of  the  Boston  papers  as  were 
engaged  on  the  popular  side  contained  accounts  of  the  af- 
,  fair.  The  dinner  at  Robinson's  must  have  been  a  jovial  oc- 
casion. Liberty  songs  were  sung,  a  variety  of  flags  were 
flung  to  the  breeze,  music  enlivened  the  scene,  and  at  proper 
intervals  cannon  were  fired.  Among  other  provisions,  three 
large  pigs  were  barbecued  for  the  dinner.  Forty-five  reg- 
ular toasts  were  drunk  with  cheers  and  discharge  of  cannon. 
Among  these  were,  by  name,  the  English  statesmen  who  had 
espoused  the  American  cause,  and  the  champions  of  freedom 
the  world  over.  A  few  will  illustrate  their  general  tone : 
"  May  the  detested  names  of  the  very  few  importers  every- 
where be  transmitted  to  posterity  with  infamy  "  ;  "  May  Sir 
Francis  Bernard  of  Nettleham,  Baronet,  the  Commissioners, 
and  others  his  confederates,  the  infamous  calumniators  of 
North  America,  soon  meet  with  condign  punishment " ; 
"  The  speedy  removal  of  all  taskmasters  and  the  redress 
of  all  grievances  "  ;  "  Strong  halters,  firm  blocks,  and  sharp 
axes  to  all  such  as  deserve  either."  These  toasts  were  evi- 
dently prepared  by  the  "  promoters  "  of  the  festival  the  day 
before  the  celebration. 

"  About  five  o'clock,"  says  the  Boston  Gazette,!  in  its  ac- 
count of  the  affair,  "  the  company  left  Mr.  Robinson's  in  a 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  218. 

t  Boston  Gazette  for  August  21,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  271 

procession  that  extended  near  a  mile  and  a  half,  and  before 
dark  entered  the  city,  went  around  the  State-House,  and 
retired  each  to  his  own  house."  Hancock  left  the  ground 
at  the  head  of  the  line  in  his  chariot,  and  another  chariot 
brought  up  the  rear.  John  Adams  records,  that,  "  to  the 
honor  of  the  Sons,  he  did  not  see  one  person  intoxicated  dur- 
ing the  festival  or  near  it."  The  Gazette  thus  concludes 
its  account :  "  The  amusements  of  the  day  were  conducted 
with  that  propriety  and  exact  decorum  which  gentlemen  ever 
observe.  All  gentlemen  of  distinction  from  other  Colonies, 
known  to  be  in  town,  had  cards.  Should  this  account  over- 
take the  Baronet  of  Nettleham  on  this  side  of  T-b — n,  he 

and  Lord  H h  are  at  liberty  to  write  seventy-seven 

columns  of  their  High  Dutch  and  low  diabolical  commen- 
taries '  about  it  and  about  it ' ! "  This  last  remark  is  ac- 
counted for  in  a  note  in  the  same  paper,  explaining  the 
mention  of  moderate  drinking  at  the  dinner,  to  the  effect 
that  in  the  letters  of  Bernard,  known  in  Boston  as  "  the 
budget  of  Nettleham  epistles,"  relating  to  the  celebration  of 
the  previous  year,  that  dignitary  had  inquired  "  how  forty- 
nine  drams  could  be  drunk  in  the  morning,  and  ninety-two 
in  the  afternoon,  consistently  with  temperance." 

A  review  thus  far  of  the  course  of  Samuel  Adams  shows 
him  to  have  entirely  devoted  his  time  and  energies  to  the 
public.  History  hardly  furnishes  an  example  of  a  man  so 
completely  lost  to  self  and  the  natural  desire,  common  to 
all,  of  improving  their  pecuniary  condition.  He  was  so  re- 
gardless of  wealth  or  the  means  of  attaining  it,  that  those 
about  him  censured  him  for  it.  His  friend  John  Adams  re- 
peatedly alludes  to  this  singular  disregard  of  riches,  a  trait, 
by  the  way,  which  made  Samuel  Adams  a  source  of  curious 
wonder  to  his  more  thrifty  kinsman.  One  day  in  June,  in 
the  next  year,  when  a  serene  summer  sky  spanned  a  land- 
scape in  which  waving  fields  and  rustling  orchards  formed  to 
some  extent,  as  now,  the  pleasant  scenery  about  New  Eng- 
land's capital,  the  two  friends  rode  out  together  in  a  chaise, 


272  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

and  conversed  of  their  personal  affairs.  They  often  called 
each  other  "  brother,"  and  the  relationship  implied  was  in 
after  years  supposed  by  strangers  to  exist  in  reality. 

"  My  brother  Samuel  Adams,"  thus  the  lawyer  and  patriot  wrote 
that  day  in  his  diary,  "  says  he  never  looked  forward  in  his  life ; 
never  planned,  laid  a  scheme,  or  formed  a  design  of  laying  up  any- 
thing for  himself  or  others  after  him.  I  told  him  I  could  not  say 
that  of  myself:  "  If  that  had  been  true  of  me  you  would  never  have 
seen  my  face.'  And  I  think  this  was  true ;  I  was  necessitated  to 
ponder  in  my  youth,  to  consider  of  ways  and  means  of  raising  a  sub- 
sistence, food,  and  raiment,  and  books  and  money  to  pay  for  my  ed- 
ucation to  the  bar.  So  that  I  must  have  sunk  into  total  contempt 
and  obscurity,  if  not  perished  for  want,  if  I  had  not  planned  for 
futurity ;  and  it  is  no  damage  to  a  young  man  to  learn  the  art  of 
living  early,  if  it  is  at  the  expense  of  much  musing,  and  pondering, 
and  anxiety."  * 

The  only  means  of  subsistence  which  Samuel  Adams  had 
for  his  family  was  the  pittance  he  occasionally  received 
from  the  Assembly  for  his  services  as  their  Clerk.  Without 
that,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  he  could  have  lived.  He  still 
owned  his  house  in  Purchase  Street ;  and  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  grounds  which  had  belonged  to  his  father's  es- 
tate remained  in  his  possession  until  1802,  shortly  before 
his  death.  But  so  entirely  did  he  give  himself  up  to  the 
public  good,  laboring  day  and  night  in  the  righteous  cause 
of  his  country,  that  no  attempt  at  any  other  occupation  could 
have  succeeded.  The  great  struggle  for  liberty  was  a  pas- 
sion with  him,  an  inborn,  unquenchable  flame  ;  and  he  fol 
lowed  it  with  all  the  ardor  of  an  inspired  apostle  of  Free- 
dom, losing  sight  of  personal  advancement  and  comfort, 
forgetful  of  the  ordinary  pursuits  which  occupy  the  minds 
of  men,  and  only  like  others  in  his  practical  ability.  He 
was  truly  and  really  contented  with  poverty,  which,  as  he 
used  to  say  to  those  who  advised  him  to  take  more  care  for 
his  personal  and  family  concerns,  brought  him  no  present 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  238. 


1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  273 

anxieties  or  forebodings  for  the  future.  He  could  live  hap- 
pily in  poverty.  His  wife  and  children  understood  him,  and 
idolized  him  as  their  protector,  adviser,  and  companion, 
whose  genial,  courageous  disposition  knew  not  despond- 
ency, and  preserved  a  warm  sunshine  in  the  hearts  of  all 
who  shared  his  society. 

And  to  the  uncomplaining  cheerfulness  of  a  brave  New 
England  woman,  who  could  meet  the  duties  and  privations 
of  her  humble  household  with  a  generous  devotion  to  the 
views  of  her  husband,  is  largely  due  the  benefits  which  his 
exertions  secured  for  his  countrymen.  Those  who  remem- 
bered Mrs.  Adams  have  spoken  of  her  as  a  noble  instance  of 
the  blending  of  womanly  grace  and  dignity  with  the  energy 
which  characterized  her  sex  throughout  the  Revolution.  In- 
to that  little  home,  during  the  darkened  hours  of  the  strug- 
gle, privation  and  even  distress  often  entered.  But  there  the 
admirable  traits  of  the  true  wife  were  displayed,  and  with 
it  a  consciousness  of  duty  that  rose  superior  to  the  shades  of 
adversity.  She  knew  how  to  make  the  most  of  their  slender 
means,  and  so  economically  did  she  manage,  that  none  who 
visited  at  the  house  could  detect,  from  outward  evidences, 
the  lack  of  any  essential  comfort. 

The  ill-feeling  between  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs 
and  the  people  daily  increased.  They  hated  the  sight  of 
each  other,  the  one  party  being  constantly  reminded  of  an 
odious  surveillance  for  the  collection  of  an  illegal  tax,  and 
the  other  conscious  of  the  disgust  they  excited  among  the 
inhabitants  while  fattening  on  the  spoils  of  this  oppression, 
in  the  pursuit  of  which  they  were  supported  by  the  military 
arm.  Their  letters,  which  were  laid  before  Parliament, 
defaming  the  town,  had  just  been  published ;  and  Otis,  whose 
mental  condition  now  rendered  him  peculiarly  sensitive  to 
their  attacks,  was  wrought  to  frenzy  by  the  calumnies  against 
him.  More  than  any  of  the  leaders,  he  had  looked  forward 
with  longing  to  a  reconciliation  with  the  government,  and, 
while  he  expressed  his  abhorrence  of  the  acts  of  trade,  he 

VOL.    I.  18 


274  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

was  sincere  in  his  loyalty  and  ardent  affection  for  England. 
Though  he  had  begun  the  active  opposition  to  Britain's  arbi- 
trary rule,  he  had  nevertheless  cautioned  his  party  against 
some  of  their  more  decided  measures,  and  did  not  entirely 
agree  with  the  principles  of  the  other  patriots.  Had  the 
right  of  taxation  been  surrendered  by  Parliament,  and  the 
Colonies  restored  to  their  condition  at  the  close  of  the  French 
War,  no  man  in  America  would  have  so  largely  enjoyed  the 
political  results  accruing  from  a  renewal  of  friendly  feeling 
as  James  Otis.  His  fine  legal  acquirements  and  oratory 
would  have  given  him  the  leading  position  in  Massachusetts, 
—  a  position  which  neither  Samuel  Adams,  Hawley,  nor 
Thacher  could  have  attained.  And  had  Otis's  theory  of  a 
representation  in  Parliament  been  adopted,  he  undoubtedly 
would  have  stood  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  as  the 
most  conspicuous  and  eloquent  American  representative.* 
The  statements,  therefore,  of  Bernard  and  the  Commission- 
ers, charging  him  with  words  of  a  treasonable  nature,  stung 
him  to  madness. 

On  the  1st  day  of  September,  James  Otis  and  Samuel 
Adams,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  had  not  escaped  the  calumni- 
ating pens  of  the  crown  officers,  went  to  Concert  Hall,  where 
the  Commissioners  still  had  their  office,  and  had  a  confer- 
ence with  each  of  those  officers.  Early  the  next  morning, 
Otis  met  them  alone  at  the  British  Coffee-House.  The  cause 
and  end  of  these  conferences  were  generally  unknown  in  the 
town,  but  they  excited  much  speculation. 

The  next  evening  Samuel  and  John  Adams,  with  a  few 
friends,  supped  with  Otis,  where  the  time  was  spent  prepar- 
ing articles  for  the  next  day's  newspaper.  John  Adams, 
who  records  the  fact  in  his  diary,  calls  it  "  working  the  po- 
litical engine.' ' 

"  Otis,"  he  says,  "  talks  all ;  he  grows  the  most  talkative  man 
alive ;  no  other  gentleman  in  company  can  find  a  space  to  put  in  a 

*  See  Chap.  IV.     Compare  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  163). 


17&9.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  275 

word.  As  Dr.  Swift  expresses  it,  he  leaves  no  elbow-room.  There 
is  much  sense,  knowledge,  spirit,  and  humor  in  his  conversation,  but 
he  grows  narrative,  like  an  old  man ;  abounds  in  stories.1' 

The  next  evening  there  was  a  meeting  of  the  club  at 
Dr.  Perkins's,  where  Otis  introduced  a  gentleman  from 
Georgia. 

"  Otis,"  continues  John  Adams,  "  indulged  himself  in  all  his  airs, 
attacked  the  selectmen,  Inches  and  Pemberton,  for  not  calling  a 
town  meeting  to  consider  the  letters  of  the  Governor,  General, 
Commodore,  Commissioners,  Collector,  Comptroller,  &c.  Charged 
them  with  timidity,  haughtiness,  arbitrary  dispositions,  and  insolence 
of  office.  But  not  the  least  attention  did  he  show  to  his  friend  the 
Georgian.  No  questions  concerning  his  Province,  their  measures 
against  the  revenue  acts,  their  growth,  manufactures,  husbandry, 
commerce.  No  general  conversation  concerning  the  continental 
opposition ;  nothing  but  one  continued  scene  of  bullying,  bantering, 
reproaching,  and  ridiculing  the  selectmen,  airs  and  vapors  about  his 
moderatorship  and  membership,  and  Cushing's  speakership.  There 
is  no  politeness  nor  delicacy,  no  learning  nor  ingenuity,  no  taste  or 
sense,  in  this  kind  of  conversation."  * 

In  this  frame  of  mind  the  overwrought  imagination  of 
Otis  prompted  him  to  hurl  defiance  at  the  creatures  whose 
calumnies  had  helped  to  drive  him  to  desperation.  Proba- 
bly the  article  which  appeared  in  the  Gazette  he  prepared 
at  his  house  the  night  previous.  Over  his  own  signature 
he  launched  his  indignation  against  the  Commissioners  by 
name,  denouncing  their  false  representations  of  himself,  and 
asserting  that  for  their  "  personal  abuse  of  himself  satisfac- 
tion had  been  personally  demanded,  due  warning  given,  but 
no  sufficient  answer  re  turned.' '  f  The  same  paper  and  the 
Evening  Post  contained  other  documents,  such  as  corre- 
spondence with  the  Collector,  and  extracts  from  the  letters 
of  the  Commissioners  to  the  Ministry. 

About  seven  o'clock  the  next  evening,  Otis,  quite  alone, 

*  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  219-221). 

t  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  4,  1769.     Tudor's  Life  of  Otis.    Bancroft,  VI.  310 


276  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

went  into  the  British  CofFee-House,  where  he  found  seated 
Robinson,  one  of  the  Commissioners,  and  a  number  of  offi- 
cers of  the  army,  navy,  and  revenue.  After  a  short  alterca- 
tion, an  assault  was  commenced  by  Robinson  With  a  cane, 
when  a  fight  ensued,  and,  the  lights  being  extinguished  in 
the  confusion,  the  friends  of  Robinson  attacked  Otis,  severely 
handling  him,  as  shown  by  his  wounds  on  the  following  day. 
A  young  man  named  Gridley,  who  was  passing,  came  to  the 
assistance  of  Otis,  but  was  also  beaten  and  put  out  of  the 
house.  The  disgraceful  scene  was  terminated  by  a  separa- 
tion of  the  combatants,  and  Otis,  bruised  and  bleeding,  was 
led  to  his  home.*  In  the  disturbed  state  of  the  town,  this 
affair  caused  much  excitement.  Both  sides  had  their  ver- 
sion of  the  story ;  but  the  commonly  received  account  was, 
that  Otis  had  been  set  upon  with  a  view  to  his  assassina- 
tion. A  suit  was  instituted  against  Robinson,  who  left  the 
country,  bonds  having  been  given  by  his  father-in-law,  a 
merchant  named  Boutineau.  Fitch,  John  Adams,  and  Blow- 
ers were  retained  as  counsel  for  Otis.  In  the  preliminary 
examination,  it  appeared  that  swords  were  drawn  by  the  offi- 
cers, who  fell  upon  Otis,  with  cries  of  "  God  damn  him ! " 
"  Kill  him !  kill  him  !  "  and  it  was  stated  that  wagers  had 
been  previously  made  upon  the  issue ;  young  Gridley  testi- 
fied that  there  was  foul  play,  and  that  he  protested  during 
the  scene  against  the  dirty  usage  which  Mr.  Otis  received. 
Bludgeons  and  a  scabbard  were  found  on  the  floor  after  the 
struggle,  and  the  whole  proceeding  was  regarded  as  cow- 
ardly and  brutal  on  the  part  of  the  crown  officers. 

Samuel  Adams,  ever  careful  of  his  friend's  welfare,  re- 
viewed the  examination  at  considerable  length  in  the  press, 
showing  that  foul  play  was  practised ;  that  Otis  had  chal- 
lenged Robinson  to  go  abroad  or  withdraw  to  a  private  place, 
and  there  decide  the  controversy  between  them.f     Robinson 

*  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis.  Drake's  History  of  Boston.  Articles  in  the  Boston 
papers  on  the  subject. 

t  "An  Impartialist,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  25,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  277 

stated  that  lie  had  laid  aside  his  sword  when  he  saw  his  ad- 
versary without  one.  But  the  surgeons,  Drs.  Perkins  and 
Lloyd,  who  attended  Otis,  pronounced  the  wound  in  his  fore- 
head to  have  been  made  by  an  edged  weapon,  and  Mr.  Ad- 
ams held  that  Robinson  had  either  misstated  the  facts  or  that 
some  one  else  had  attacked  Otis  with  a  sword.  At  the  trial, 
the  jury  found  two  thousand  pounds  sterling  damages  for 
the  plaintiff  and  costs  of  suit.  This  sum  Otis  generously  re- 
fused to  take  upon  Robinson's  expressing  sorrow  for  his  con- 
duct, confessing  himself  the  agressor,  and  asking  pardon  of 
the  injured  men  through  Boutineau,  who,  being  a  lawyer, 
managed  the  case  for  the  defendant.  Thirty  pounds  each 
for  the  counsel,  the  doctor's  bills,  and  the  cost  of  court  were 
paid  by  Robinson  ;  but,  as  the  release  stipulated,  "  not  a  far- 
thing for  the  use  of  the  said  James  Otis,  he  having*  (as  be- 
fore observed)  a  most  thorough  contempt  for  a  pecuniary 
recompense  when  a  better  can  be  obtained."  *  The  injuries 
received  by  Otis  probably  assisted  in  the  destruction  of  his 
intellect,  which  had .  already  shown  symptoms  of  failure  in 
a  variableness  of  opinion  and  an  uncertainty  of  conduct, 
which,  henceforth  increasing,  incapacitated  him  for  calm  de- 
liberation. The  only  other  effect  of  the  fray  was  to  increase 
the  quarrels  between  the  people  and  the  officers,  and  to  in- 
tensify the  opposition  to  government.  The  revenue  act  was 
more  fiercely  attacked,  and  the  public  mind  wrought  to  ex- 
asperation by  the  contributors  to  the  press. 

"  Let  me  ask  the  cabal,"  said  Samuel  Adams,  "  whether  the  Col- 
onies in  general  are  perfectly  reconciled  to  this  act.  They  now  see 
the  contrary  with  grief  and  despair,  and  they  may  ere  long  see  it 
with  terror  and  amazement.  The  Colonies  are  more  than  ever 
united  in  a  determined  opposition  to  these  acts,  and  I  hope  in  God 
they  will  continue  their  opposition  to  them  till  they  are  all  repealed ; 
till  the  locusts  and  caterpillars,  which  now  swarm  among  us,  are 
driven  off  like  chaff,  and  every  American  grievance  is  redressed. 

*  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  p.  505  (Appendix). 


278  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

"  Let  any  one  imagine  the  distress  of  these  people,  —  a  free  city 
—  I  mean  once  free,  and  still  entitled  to  its  freedom  —  reduced  to 
the  worst  of  tyranny,  an  aggravated  tyranny !  Was  not  an  army  of 
placemen  and  pensioners  sufficient,  who  would  eat  us  up  as  they  eat 
bread,  but  an  army  of  soldiers  must  be  stationed  in  our  very  bow- 
els !  Where  is  the  Bill  of  Rights,  Magna  Charta,  and  the  blood  of 
our  venerable  forefathers  ?  In  this  dilemma,  to  what  a  dreadful  al- 
ternative were  we  reduced,  —  to  resist  this  tyranny,  or  submit  to 
chains  /  The  one  might  have  been  done  with  the  greatest  ease,  for 
what  was  a  handful  of  troops  to  subdue  a  large  country  !  Surely 
two  or  three  regiments  could  never  have  been  intended  to  extermi- 
nate the  inhabitants  of  this  Province,  and  it  could  not  have  been 
expected  that  such  a  petty  armament  could  produce  any  other  effect 
than  that  of  'inspiring  the  people  with  resentment.'  Those  who 
imagined,  that  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  would  oppose  the  landing 
of  the  King's  troops  knew  very  little  of  their  temper  or  design ; 
and  yet,  I  believe,  the  thought  of  finally  submitting  to  chains  was 
never  suffered  to  harbor  in  their  hearts.  God  forbid  that  free  coun- 
tries should  ever  again  yield  to  tyranny !  This  has  long  been  the 
unhappy  fate  of  the  world,  while  it  was  overspread  with  ignorance 
and  enveloped  in  darkness.  Mankind,  I  hope,  are  now  become  too 
enlightened  to  suffer  it  much  longer."  * 

Bernard  having  written  to  England  that  the  most  respect- 
able of  the  merchants  wonld  not  hold  to  their  non-importa- 
tion agreements,  and  that  the  subscriptions  would  come  to 
naught,  encouragement  was  given  to  British  merchants  to 
engage  anew  in  the  colonial  trade.  By  intelligence  received 
in  September,  it  was  known  to  Mr.  Adams  that  "  a  factor," 
as  he  expressed  it,  "  from  London  was  jdaily  expected  in  the 
next  ship,  and,  as  it  was  said,  under  ministerial  favor,  with 
a  very  large  importation  of  British  manufactures."  This 
was  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  force  the  obnoxious  goods 
upon  the  inhabitants,  and  a  direct  issue  was  thus  to  be  made 
between  the  supporters  of  this  importation  scheme  and  the 
virtuous  determination  of  the  people  not  to  purchase.  The 
suspicion  entertained  by  Mr.  Adams  that  these  goods  came 

♦  "Alfred,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  2,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  279 

under  "  high  authority  "  was  not  without  foundation,  for  the 
military  officers  had  been  preparing  to  protect  the  factors  on 
their  arrival.  He  also  knew  that  many  of  the  proscribed  ar- 
ticles were  imported  in  the  names  of  the  military  officers, 
ostensibly  for  the  use  of  the  soldiers. 

"Good  God,"  he  wrote,  "how  much  longer  is  it  expected  that 
the  patience  of  this  injured  country  shall  hold  out  ?  Have  we  not 
already  been  sufficiently  provoked?  Is  it  possible  that  any  man 
should  have  the  effrontery,  against  the  united  resolutions  of  a  conti- 
nent, to  import  and  vend  its  bane?  Unparalleled  presumption! 
Shall  a  stranger  dare  to  be  the  tool  of  the  cabal,  and  the  instrument 
of  oversetting  a  measure  upon  the  success  of  which  the  hopes  of  mil- 
lions are  suspended  ?  What  a  degree  of  intolerable  vanity  and  in- 
solence is  here  !  Shall  this  man  avail  himself,  and  make  a  precedent 
for  others  to  avail  themselves  of  the  sacrifice  which  our  own  mer- 
chants and  tradesmen  have  voluntarily  made  for  the  public  good,  and 
hereafter  wrest  that  part  of  the  trade  out  of  their  hands,  whenever 
the  safety  of  the  country  shall  admit  of  its  being  again  carried  on  ? 
What  man  will  purchase  goods  of  such  a  bold  intruder  ?  Who  will 
not  look  upon  him  as  a  public  enemy,  and  treat  him  with  the  marks 
of  contempt  and  hatred  ?  But,  contemptible  and  odious  as  he  must 
appear,  yet,  in  comparison  with  these  few  natives  of  the  country  — 
and,  blessed  be  God,  there  are  but  few  —  who  can  pride  themselves 
in  the  importations  they  have  made,  and  impudently  boast  of  their 
success, — in  comparison,  I  say,  with  such  parricides  as  these,  a 
stranger  must,  in  an  impartial  eye,  appear  even  innocent."  * 

On  that  very  day,  the  expected  ships  arrived.  The  tocsin 
had  not  been  sounded  an  hour  too  soon.  Bryant,  the  factor, 
landed  on  the  4th,  and  a  meeting  of  the  merchants  was  im- 
mediately convened ;  and  having  obliged  Greene  and  Boyl- 
ston,  the  owners,  to  engage  to  house  all  their  goods  and  de- 
liver the  key  to  the  committee,  "  they  called  before  them  a 
young  fellow  who  belonged  to  England,  and  brought  about 
a  thousand  pounds  sterling  in  goods  for  sale,  and  required 
him  to  send  his  goods  back  again."  f     The  unhappy  Lieu* 

*  "Alfred,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  2,  1769. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Oct.  5,  1769. 


280  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

tenant-Governor  wrote  in  rueful  plight,  and  doubtless  fore- 
saw what  might  befall  his  own  adventure  in  the  interdicted 
articles. 

On  the  same  day  the  town  held  a  meeting,  at  which  Cush- 
ing,  Samuel  and  John  Adams,  Otis,  Dana,  Hancock,  Hen- 
shaw,  Jackson,  Kent,  and  Warren  were  appointed  a  commit- 
tee to  vindicate  the  town  from  the  false  representations 
contained  in  the  letters  of  Bernard,  Gage,  Hood,  and  others, 
authentic  copies  of  which  had  been  transmitted  to  the  select- 
men.* The  meeting  then  took  up  the  subject  of  those  who 
had  broken  the  non-importation  agreement,  and  the  names 
of  four,  "few  indeed,  to  the  honor  of  the  town,"  were  placed 
upon  the  records  as  infamous,  "  that  posterity  may  know 
who  those  persons  were  that  preferred  their  little  advantage 
to  the  common  interest  of  all  the  Colonies  in  a  point  of  the 
greatest  importance."  These  proceedings  having  been  pub- 
lished in  the  next  day's  paper,  Hutchinson  added,  by  way  of 
postscript  to  his  letter  to  Bernard :  — 

"  I  am  now  able  to  send  you  this  day's  paper,  with  the  infamous 
vote  of  the  town  of  Boston.  It  was  approved,  and  some  said  my  sons 
had  given  up  their  goods ;  but  Adams,  Kent,  and  others  replied, 
that  it  was  not  voluntary;  they  should  have  done  it  before.f  I 
know  that  I  should  have  been  afraid  to  put  such  a  question  as  mod- 
erator, or  sign  it  as  town  clerk.  I  have  been  in  pain  for  your  son, 
but  am  now  in  hopes  he  may  stand  it  out."  % 

The  names  of  Hutchinson's  two  sons  were  also  recorded 
by  the  town  as  infamous,  though,  by  their  father's  direc- 
tions, they  had  given  up  eighteen  chests  of  tea ;  but  the 
meeting  had  no  faith  in  their  sincerity.  Another  ship  ar- 
rived on  the  15th,  and  a  similar  disposition  was  made  of  the 
goods,  while  the  troops,  however  much  their  officers  may 

*  Boston  Town  Records,  Oct.  4,  1769. 

t  These  two  sons  kept  a  shop  in  which  their  father  was  interested.  Several 
weeks  previously,  Mr.  Adams  as  "  Populus  "  in  the  Boston  Gazette  had  publicly- 
warned  them  by  name  as  "  bringing  up  the  rear  in  the  ignoble  list  of  importers." 

X  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Oct.  5,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  281 

have  desired  to  act,  stood  idle  spectators,  knowing  that  their 
hands  were  tied,  for  they  could  not  legally  interfere.  In  the 
midst  of  these  proceedings,  a  letter  was  received  from  New 
York,  inviting  Boston  to  continue  the  non-importation  agree- 
ment until  all  the  revenue  acts  were  repealed,  and  'by  the 
great  influence  of  Molineux,  Otis,  Samuel  Adams,  and  Wil- 
liam Cooper,  the  new  form  was  adopted  by  the  merchants.* 
Hutchinson,  who  kept  a  daily  record  by  letter  of  everything, 
thus  expressed  to  Bernard  his  rage  and  chagrin :  — 

"  I  cannot  but  be  of  the  opinion  that  an  act  subjecting  every  per- 
son who  had  been  concerned  in  any  of  these  combinations,  and  who 
held  any  sort  of  office  of  honor  or  trust,  and  did  not  in  any  such  way 
or  manner  as  should  be  directed,  disclaim,  &c,  should  forever  after 
be  disqualified,  would  make  a  number  of  these  people,  and,  among 
the  rest,  Cooper,  Adams,  &c,  tremble ;  though  I  don't  think  this  half 
enough  for  so  atrocious  a  crime ;  and  for  any  persons  who  should 
hereafter  be  concerned,  no  penalty  is  too  great. 

"  If  Parliament  does  not  before  the  holidays  show  their  indigna- 
tion against  this  defiance  of  their  authority,  I  shall  think  I  am  mis- 
taken, and  that  it  is  not  such  an  offence  as  it  has  always  appeared  to 
me  to  be.  At  least,  processes  ought  to  be  made  out  for  the  appre- 
hension of  all  who  have  been  concerned  and  who  do  not  immediately 
disclaim. 

"The  merchants,  in  their  meeting  referred  to  in  the  foregoing, 
voted  to  continue  their  agreement  for  non-importation  until  all  the 
revenue  acts  be  repealed,  and  a  subscription  is  now  carrying  about ; 
but  it  seems  that  they  have  thought  proper  not  to  suffer  their  pro- 
ceedings to  be  printed  until  they  know  that  they  shall  succeed  in 
their  subscriptions.  A  rigorous  spirit  in  Parliament  will  yet  set  us 
right :  without  it,  the  government  of  this  Province  will  be  split  into 
innumerable  divisions.  Every  town,  every  parish,  and  every  par- 
ticular club  or  connection,  will  meet,  vote,  and  carry  their  votes  into 
execution  just  as  they  please."  ( 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  311.  t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Oct.,  1769. 


CHAPTER   XIY. 

Report  of  the  Town's  Committee.  —  Adams  writes  the  "  Appeal  to  the  World." 

—  Its  Effect.  —  Treatment  of  an  Informer. — John  Mein  and  his  Publica- 
tions.—  Increasing  Animosity  between  the  Troops  and  the  People.  —  Ad- 
ams warns  the  Agent  in  London.  —  Liberty  in  the  other  Colonies.  —  Adams 
declares  that  the  Troops  must  quit  the  Town.  —  Assembling  of  Parliament. 

—  Lord  North  becomes  Prime  Minister.  —  Spirit  of  the  New  Englaud 
Women.  —  Public  Disturbances.  —  The  Governor  desires  Bloodshed.  — 
The   Case  of  Eichardson. 

When  two  weeks  had  passed  since  the  appointment  of  the 
committee  to  vindicate  the  town  from  the  aspersions  of  Ber- 
nard and  the  crown  officers,  a  town  meeting  was  called  on 
the  18th,  and  the  report,  with  some  slight  alterations,  was 
unanimously  adopted.*  This  paper,  which  was  printed  by 
Vorder  of  the  town,  was  the  afterwards  celebrated  "  Appeal 
>To  the  World,"  and  was  written  by  Samuel  Adams.  It  re- 
ceived a  wide  circulation  in  America. f  Copies  were  sent  to 
the  leading  friends  of  the  Colonies  in  England,  where  it  was 
republished.  The  vigor  of  its  style,  the  plain  reasoning 
which  unmasks  the  character  of  the  writers  against  the 
Province,  the  boldness  of  the  vindication,  yet  tempered  with 
the  calm  confidence  of  a  just  cause,  gave  it  a  prominence 
which  had  only  been  equalled  by  the  "  True  Sentiments  of 
America,' '  by  the  same  hand  in  the  previous  year.  It  was 
read  in  England  during  the  height  of  the  Wilkes  excitement, 
and  when  the  public  mind  was  prepared  by  the  writings  of 

*  Boston  Town  Records,  Oct.  18,  1769. 

t  An  Appeal  to  the  World ;  or  a  Vindication  of  the  Town  of  Boston,  from 
many  False  and  Malicious  Aspersions  contain'd  in  certain  Letters  and  Memo- 
rials, written  by  Governor  Bernard,  General  Gage,  Commodore  Hood,  the 
Commissioners  of  the  American  Board  of  Customs,  and  Others,  and  by  them 
respectively  transmitted  to  the  British  Ministry.  Published  by  order  of  the 
Town.  Printed  and  sold  by  Edes  and  Gill,  in  Queen-Street,  Boston,  1769. 
8°.     pp.  37. 


TO 


Oct.,  1769.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  283 

"  Junius  "  to  listen  with  peculiar  interest  to  an  appeal  for 
American  rights,  which,  on  the  principle  of  representation, 
were  alike  invaded  in  both  countries.  The  work  goes  over 
the  ground  covered  by  previous  essays  and  letters  of  Mr.  Ad- 
ams, relative  to  the  misrepresentations  of  the  crown  officers 
and  their  animosity  to  the  Province.  Bernard's  letters  to 
the  Earl  of  Shelburne  and  Lord  Hillsborough  are  considered 
at  great  length ;  each  statement  is  dissected,  and  the  exag- 
gerations clearly  proved. 

The  consequent  ordering  of  troops  to  coerce  a  loyal  peo- 
ple disclosed  a  purpose  which  the  pamphlet  declares  to  be 
"  dangerous  and  abhorrent  to  the  British  Constitution  and 
the  spirit  of  a  free  government,  namely,  to  support  the  civil 
authority.  A  measure  which  has  caused  continual  terror  to 
his  Majesty's  peaceable  subjects  here,  and  has  been  pro- 
ductive of  more  disturbance  and  confusion  than  has  been 
known  in  the  memory  of  any  now  living,  or  than  is  record- 
ed by  any  historian,  even  the  most  partial,  against  this 
country." 

The  Governor's  nervous  timidity,  which  was  constantly 
wishing  for  an  armed  force  to  protect  him,  is  exposed,  as 
well  as  his  exaggerations  relative  to  the  meeting  in  June, 
1768,  under  "  Liberty  Tree." 

"  He  always  discovered/'  says  the  Appeal,  "  an  aversion  to  free 
assemblies :  no  wonder  tnen  that  he  should  be  so  particularly  dis- 
gusted at  a  legal  meeting  of  the  town  of  Boston,  where  a  noble  free- 
dom of  speech  is  ever  expected  and  maintained;  an  assembly  of 
which  it  may  be  justly  said,  to  borrow  the  language  of  the  ancient 
Roman,  with  a  little  variation,  *  Sentire  quae  volunt  et  quae  sentiunt 
dicere  licet,'  —  they  think  as  they  please,  and  speak  as  they  think. 
Such  an  assembly  has  ever  been  the  dread,  often  the  scourge,  of 
tyrants." 

Of  the  proceedings  adopted  at  the  town  meeting  of  Sep- 
tember 12th  in  the  previous  year,  the  Appeal  says :  — 

"  The  resolves  and  determinations  of  this  meeting,  as  the  Gover- 
nor says,  were  published  to  the  world  j  and  they  remain  in  the  rec- 


284  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

ords  of  the  town,  that  posterity  may  judge  of  them.  The  town 
has  seen  no  reason  since  to  revoke  these  resolves,  notwithstanding 
they  have  been  sentenced  as  '  very  dangerous  resolves,  procured  by 
mad  people,'  by  so  exquisite  a  judge  in  matters  which  regard  civil 
government,  as  well  as  so  polite  a  gentleman,  as  General  Gage.  The 
Governor  himself  has  been  since  respectfully  requested  by  the  se- 
lectmen, in  behalf  of  the  town,  to  show  in  what  respect  the  resolves 
and  proceedings  of  this  very  meeting  had  militated  with  law,  but 
he  declined  it ;  and  we  believe  he  declined  it,  because  he  was  not 
able  to  do  it.  Spirited,  indeed,  they  were,  but  not  too  spirited  for 
the  times.  When  the  Constitution  is  threatened,  the  principles  of 
the  Constitution  must,  if  ever,  be  asserted  and  supported.  The  Gov- 
ernor, indeed,  takes  notice  of  our  claim  to  a  certain  clause  in  the 
Bill  of  Rights,  as  i  a  large  stride  ' ;  but  as  we  are  free  British  sub- 
jects, we  claim  all  that  security  against  arbitrary  power  to  which  we 
are  entitled  by  the  law  of  God  and  nature,  as  well  as  the  British 
Constitution.  And  if  a  standing  army  may  not  be  posted  upon  the 
subjects  in  one  part  of  the  empire  in  time  of  peace,  without  their 
consent,  there  can  be  no  reason  why  it  should  in  any  other ;  for  all 
British  subjects  are,  or  ought  to  be,  alike  free. 

u  Notwithstanding  the  town  have  been  obliged  in  justice  to  them- 
selves to  say  thus  much  in  their  own  vindication,  we  should  yet  be 
glad  that  the  ancient  and  happy  union  between  Great  Britain  and 
this  country,  which  Governor  Bernard  has  labored  so  industriously 
to  interrupt,  might  be  restored.  Some  have  indeed  flattered  them- 
selves with  the  prospect  of  it,  as  intelligence  is  said  to  have  been  re- 
ceived from  Administration  that  all  the  revenue  acts  would  be 
repealed.  But  as  it  since  appears,  by  Lord  Hillsborough's  own 
account,  that  nothing  more  is  intended  than  the  taking  off  the  duties 
on  paper,  glass,  and  painters'  colors,  upon  commercial  principles 
only,  if  that  is  all,  it  will  not  give  satisfaction.  It  will  not  even  re- 
lieve trade  from  the  burdens  it  labors  under :  much  less  will  it  re- 
move the  grounds  of  discontent  which  runs  through  the  continent 
upon  much  higher  principles.  Their  rights  are  invaded  by  these 
acts :  therefore,  until  they  are  all  repealed,  the  cause  of  their  just 
complaints  cannot  be  removed.  In  short,  the  grievances  which  lie 
heavily  upon  us  we  shall  never  think  redressed,  till  every  act 
passed  by  the  British  Parliament  for  the  express  purpose  of  raising 


1769.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  285 

a  revenue  upon  us  without  our  consent  is  repealed ;  till  the  Amer- 
ican Board  of  Commissioners  of  the  Customs  is  dissolved,  the  troops 
recalled,  and  things  are  restored  to  the  state  they  were  in  before  the 
late  extraordinary  measures  of  administration  took  place." 

The  temper  and  style  of  the  Appeal,  which  occupies  twen- 
ty-nine pages  of  the  records,  may  be  gathered  from  these  ex- 
tracts. The  town  endeavored  by  this  vindication  to  place 
itself  plainly  in  the  right  before  the  world ;  and  for  that 
purpose  there  is  no  attempt  to  convey  a  meaning  by  covert 
expressions.  It  was  a  candid,  outspoken  announcement  of 
the  sentiment  of  Boston  touching  their  just  rights  ;  and  its 
solemn  warning,  which  it  was  intended  the  British  Ministry 
should  peruse,  that  they  should  never  consider  their  wrongs 
redressed  until  the  whole  assumed  right  of  taxation  was  re- 
nounced, might  have  warned  any  far-seeing  statesman  of 
the  approaching  crisis,  but  an  overruling  Providence  or- 
dained it  otherwise.  The  town  appointed  a  committee  to 
transmit  the  Appeal  to  persons  of  influence  in  England ; 
and  Mr.  Adams,  who  was  a  member,  prepared  a  letter  which 
was  signed  by  the  committee,  and  forwarded  with  the  pam- 
phlet. It  emphatically  repeats  what  measures  of  relief  are 
expected,  and  enumerates  particularly  the  repeal  of  the  rev- 
enue act,  the  removal  of  the  troops,  and  the  restoration  of 
affairs  to  the  state  they  were  in  before  the  late  measures  of 
administration.  Hutchinson,  who  had  particularly  assisted 
in  misleading  opinion  in  England,  saw  in  the  Appeal  an  addi- 
tional instance  of  sedition  ;  and  he  forthwith  sent  it  to  Ber- 
nard, who,  as  fresh  from  the  Province,  was  an  oracle  on 
American  affairs,  and  had  the  ear  of  the  Ministry.* 

*  The  Appeal  to  the  World  has  been  erroneously  ascribed  to  James  Otis 
In  1819,  fifty  years  after  it  was  written,  John  Adams  thought  it  not  improb- 
able that  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams  might  have  composed  it  together ;  and  the 
biographer  of  Otis  also  claims  it  as  their  joint  production,  probably  on  the 
same  authority.  Independent  of  the  fact,  that  a  careful  examination  of  the 
Appeal  shows  no  resemblance  to  the  style  of  Otis,  while  it  has  exactly  and  un- 
mistakably that  of  Adams,  the  condition  of  Otis  just  previous  to  this  time, 


286  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

"  The  thing,"  said  he,  "  is  calculated  to  take  the  vulgar  and  mis- 
lead others  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the  facts ;  but  it  is  so 
shamefully  evasive  and  fallacious,  that  I  cannot  but  hope  you  will 
furnish  some  person  of  leisure  with  the  true  state  of  facts,  that  it 
may  be  answered.  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  design  to  publish  it 
in  England ;  and  they  would  suffer  no  copies  to  go  out  until  the 
vessels  which  were  then  ready  had  sailed.  I  was  obliged  to 
employ  Frank  to  procure  me  one  from  a  journeyman  who  then 
worked  in  the  press.  I  send  another,  as  the  former  may  have 
miscarried.  It  was  offered  to  the  town  by  Adams,  and  probably 
most  of  it  is  his  performance.  But  there  are  some  parts  appear  to 
me  the  work  of  another  hand ;  what  relates  to  the  Council  is  prob- 
ably the  production  of  a  gentleman  who  was  then  of  the  Council."  * 

as  disclosed  in  the  diary  of  John  Adams  and  the  letter  of  Hutchinson  soon 
after,  renders  it  impossible  that  he  could  have  been  even  partly  its  author. 

The  title  of  the  paper,  "  Appeal  to  the  World,"  had  long  been  a  favorite 
and  peculiar  expression  with  Samuel  Adams.  As  "  Determinatus,"  in  the 
Boston  Gazette,  Aug.  8,  1768,  he  says  when  treating  this  very  subject  of  mis- 
representations by  the  crown  officers  :  — 

"  /  appeal  to  the  world  upon  this  short  but  full  narration  of  the  facts,  wheth- 
er," &c. 

And  in  the  same  paper,  as  "  Shippen,"  Jan.  30,  1769,  while  vindicating 
the  town  against  its  false  accusers  :  — 

"  Without  saying  anything  more  on  this  point,  we  may  venture  to  appeal  to 
the  candid  world  where  the  ingratitude  lies." 

And  again  as  "A  Bostonian,"  April  24,  1769  :  — 

"  If  the  General  [Gage]  has  characterized  the  town  and  Province  upon  his 
own  observation,  I  appeal  to  the  candid  world  whether  the  bare  affirmation,"  &c. 

All  these  instances  occur  before  the  Appeal  to  the  World  appeared,  and 
reveal  the  hand  of  one  writer  discussing  the  same  theme,  —  the  vindication  of 
the  town. 

In  May,  1773,  writing  to  Arthur  Lee,  he  again  uses  the  expression.  Sending 
to  his  friend  the  printed  proceedings  of  the  town  at  a  late  election,  he  says : 
"  They  may  be  looked  upon  as  fresh  appeals  to  the  world."  The  Appeal  was  re- 
ported to  the  town  by  Samuel  Adams  in  person,  —  so  Hutchinson  wrote  at  the 
time,  —  which  is  a  strong  indication  that  he  was  its  author.  But  when  to  these 
evidences  we  add  the  fact  that  fragments  of  the  original  manuscript,  with  the 
erasures,  interlineations,  and  corrections,  still  exist  in  the  handwriting  of  Sam- 
uel Adams,  the  question  would  seem  to  be  set  at  rest,  especially  as  no  portion 
of  the  paper  has  ever  been  found  in  the  hand  of  any  other  person.  For  Sam- 
uel Adams's  authorship,  see  Bancroft,  VI.  312. 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  October,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  287 

Hutchinson  had  come  to  know  the  peculiar  style  of  Ad- 
ams almost  as  well  as  though  the  writings  had  been  his  own. 
He  had  his  spies  too,  who  kept  him  informed  as  to  the  au- 
thorship of  pieces  in  the  public  press ;  and  the  government 
employed  a  number  of  informers,  whose  business  it  was  to 
watch  the  movements  of  the  popular  leaders,  and  report  all 
they  saw  and  heard.  These  were  sometimes  detected  by  the 
people,  and,  in  such  cases,  suffered  rough  treatment  from 
them.  An  instance  occurred  on  the  28th  of  October,  when 
an  informer  against  a  quantity  of  smuggled  wine,  brought 
from  Rhode  Island,  was  tarred  and  feathered,  and  carted  in 
the  evening  through  the  streets  for  three  hours,  attended  by 
a  vast  concourse  of  people,  who  obliged  the  wretched  man 
to  carry  a  large  glass  lantern,  and,  under  the  Liberty  Tree, 
"  made  him  swear  never  to  be  guilty  of  a  like  crime  in  fu- 
ture. "  Passing  the  office  of  the  Chronicle,  a  government 
paper  published  by  Mein  and  Flemming,  the  procession  was 
fired  upon,  when  the  crowd  broke  in  the  doors,  and  the  in- 
mates would  probably  have  shared  the  fate  of  the  informer, 
but  for  their  speedy  flight.*  The  senior  partner  in  this  pub- 
lishing firm  was  John  Mein,  a  Scotchman,  who  had  been 
brought  up  a  bookseller,  and  had  come  to  Boston  in  1764 
from  Glasgow.  His  paper  remained  neutral  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  stamp  and  revenue  troubles ;  but  in  the 
summer  of  1769,  he  found  it  for  his  interest  to  take  the  gov- 
ernment side,  and  in  August  he  endeavored  to  dissuade 
the  merchants  from  adhering  to  their  non-importation  agree- 
ments by  misrepresenting  the  signers.  Mr.  Adams  publicly 
warned  him  against  "  this  opposition  to  an  awakened,  an  en- 
lightened, and  a  determined  continent"  ;  and  at  last,  when 
the  publisher  ventured  to  caricature  the  leading  patriots, 
he  was  attacked  on  Pope-day  in  King  Street,  near  his  office, 
and  driven  to  the  main  guard  for  protection.  The  people 
followed  and  demanded  that  he  should  be  surrendered  to 

*  Drake's  Boston,   p.  776.    Bancroft,  VI.   313.   Barry's   Massachusetts, 
H.  400. 


288  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

them;  but  lie  finally  escaped  in  disguise,  and  soon  after 
sailed  for  England.* 

The  inactivity  forced  upon  the  troops,  amid  all  these  com- 
motions, was  humiliating ;  but  they  could  only  chafe  and 
exhibit  their  anger  by  occasional  frays  with  the  people. 
The  leaders  constantly  endeavored  to  impress  them  with  the 
fact  that  they  were  useless  appendages  of  illegal  power,  and 
subservient  to  the  civil  magistrate.  A  captain  in  the  Twen- 
ty-ninth Regiment,  who  gave  directions  to  his  soldiers,  "  If 
they  touch  you,  run  them  through  the  body,"  was  indicted 
for  the  speech,  and  early  in  November  the  grand  jury  found 
a  true  bill  against  Bernard,  General  Gage,  and  others,  for 
"  slandering  the  town  of  Boston."  "  Surely,"  said  Mr.  Ad- 
ams, as  he  mused  upon  the  possibility  of  some  sanguinary 
event,  "  no  Provincial  magistrate  could  be  found  so  steeled 
against  the  sensations  of  humanity  and  justice  as  wantonly 
to  order  troops  to  fire  on  an  unarmed  populace,  and  (more 
than)  repeat  in  Boston  the  tragic  scenes  exhibited  in  St. 
George's  Field.     I  shudder  at  the  thought !  "  f 

The  event,  however,  which  was  to  seal  in  blood  the  deliv- 
erance of  the  town  from  the  immediate  presence  of  these 
mercenaries  was  but  a  few  months  distant.  How  far  they 
were  fallen  into  contempt  with  the  people,  and  how  the  per- 
sistent oppression  of  the  mother  country  was  cementing  the 
determined  bitterness  of  the  opposition,  may  be  inferred 
from  the  following  letter. 

Boston,  Not.  16,  1769. 
Sir,— 

I  received  your  favor  by  Mr.  Reed,  whose  good  sense,  agreeable 
conversation,  and  polite  behavior  entitle  him  to  very  great  respect 
and  esteem  among  the  best  part  of  the  world. 

It  is  with  astonishment  and  indignation  that  Americans  contem- 
plate the  folly  of  the  British  Ministry,  in  employing  troops  which 
have  heretofore  been  the  terror  of  the  enemies  to  liberty,  only  to 
parade  the  streets  of  Boston,  and  by  their  ridiculous  merry-andrew 

*  Drake's  Boston,  p.  774.     Buckingham's  Reminiscences,  I.  214. 
t  "Alfred,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  Oct.  2,  1769. 


1769.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL   ADAMS,  289 

tricks  to  become  the  objects  of  the  contempt  of  even  women  and 
children.  If  the  noble  Corsicans  were  not  worthy  the  least  of  their 
attentions,  surely  they  ought  to  have  been  alarmed  at  the  large 
strides  which  the  French  and  Spaniards,  the  inveterate  foes  to  Brit- 
ain, are  making  towards  the  recovery  of  their  lost  territories  in 
America.  One  winter  more  trifled  away,  or  worse  than  trifled,  in 
fruitless  endeavors  to  enslave  a  people  who  are  more  than  ever  re- 
solved to  be  free,  may  afford  those  powers  the  opportunity  of  com- 
pleting a  plan  already  begun,  and  to  finish  a  stroke  in  America 
which  may  awaken  the  attention  of  Britain  in  vain.  We  tremble 
for  her  fate ;  we  wish  her  prosperity ;  we  hope  she  will  soon  employ 
herself  to  much  nobler  purposes  than  picking  up  pins  and  pebbles. 
Those  who  have  succeeded  in  their  endeavors  to  alienate  the  affec- 
tions of  her  Colonies  have  served  her  enemies  in  the  very  point 
they  could  have  wished  for.  Britain  may  fall  sooner  than  she  is 
aware  ;  while  her  Colonies,  who  are  now  struggling  for  liberty,  may 
survive  her  fate,  and  tell  the  story  to  their  children's  children.  I 
conclude  in  great  haste. 

Your  friend  and  humble  servant, 

Samuel  Adams. 
Dennys  Deberdt,  Esq. 

There  was  a  spirit  of  prophecy  in  this  letter,  as  events 
proved.  It  now  seems  scarcely  credible  that  the  government 
should  have  been  unmindful  of  the  dangers  which  are  here 
pictured.  The  downfall  of  British  rule  in  America  was  ar- 
dently desired  by  every  trading  rival  in  Europe,  and  the  peril 
increased  as  the  absurd  contest  was  prolonged.  Her  com- 
mercial monopoly  had  been  long  regarded  with  a  jealous 
eye ;  and  nations  eagerly  watched  the  progress  of  a  sys- 
tematic folly  which,  as  all  but  the  infatuated  King  and  Min- 
istry saw,  led  plainly  to  a  great  catastrophe.  A  convention 
had  already  been  entered  into  between  France  and  Spain, 
with  the  ultimate  view  of  crippling  the  British  Colonial 
strength,  towards  which  the  first  step  was  made  early  in 
1771,  by  an  attack  by  the  Spanish  forces  upon  the  Falkland 
Islands.*    Yet,  amid  these  hostile  indications,  the  taxation 

*  See  Grahame's  History,  II.  426,  456 ;  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  296. 
vol.  i.  19 


290  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov.,  Dec 

policy  was  pursued.  The  revenue  to  be  derived  was  but 
trifling.  It  was  the  arbitrary  right  alone  for  which  the  con- 
test was  waged,  risking  the  loss  of  the  "  brightest  jewel  in 
the  crown."  That  right  would  never  be  conceded,  and 
would  be  resisted  to  the  last. 

Deberdt,  who  still  served  the  Province  as  the  agent  of  the 
Assembly,  endeavored  to  obtain  additional  evidence  against 
Bernard  to  support  the  petition  of  the  House  for  his  removal. 
The  letter  spoken  of  above  was  probably  on  that  subject,  as 
was  one  to  Cushing,  received  by  the  same  ship,  to  which 
Hutchinson  thus  alludes  :  — 

"  The  remonstrance  of  the  House  I  knew  would  be  odious  to  you. 
Undress  it,  and  let  the  facts  appear  naked,  and  you  are  not  accused 
of  doing  anything  which  it  would  not  have  been  culpable  in  you  to 
have  left  undone.  The  Speaker,  a  day  or  two  ago,  opened  a  letter 
which  he  received  by  the  last  ship  from  Deberdt,  and  began  to  read 
it  in  company.  Deberdt  says,  that  if  the  Speaker  will  furnish  him 
with  evidence  of  any  damage  the  Province  has  sustained  by  your 
acts  of  oppression,  he  will  bring  an  action  against  you,  now  you  are 
in  England.  He  was  going  on ;  but  Adams,  who  sat  by,  told  him  he 
believed  it  was  a  private  letter,  and  then  he  stopped."  * 

If  the  voluminous  evidence  contained  in  the  Appeal  to 
the  World,  exposing  the  false  representations  of  Bernard  and 
others,  was  not  to  be  regarded  as  proof  against  the  Gov- 
ernor, it  would  be  useless  indeed  to  have  gone  through  the 
farce  of  taking  affidavits  which  would  be  spurned  by  the  royal 
Council.  The  damage  sustained  by  the  Province  through 
the  subversion  of  its  liberties  could  never  be  brought  to  the 
eyes  of  the  Ministry,  who  ignored  the  British  rights  claimed 
by  the  Americans,  and  had  no  word  but  sedition  for  their 
efforts  in  support  of  those  rights.  The  petition  was  rejected 
as  "  groundless,  vexatious,  and  scandalous,"  and  all  the  evi- 
dence in  the  world  would  not  have  prevented  this  result.f 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  November,  1769. 

t  Opinion  of  the  Ministry  in  Council  of  the  petition  of  the  House  against 
Gov.  Bernard. 


1769.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  291 

The  great  principles  upon  which  the  claims  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  were  based  were  never  recognized  by  Hillsbor- 
ough, whose  contempt  for  the  motives  which  actuated  the 
opposition,  unchangeable  from  the  first,  was  strengthened 
by  the  advice  of  Bernard,  who  was  at  his  side,  and  by  the 
letters  of  Hutchinson,  who  plied  the  Baronet  with  corre- 
spondence, which  he  knew  would  be  shown  to  the  Ministry, 
and  perhaps  aid  in  his  own  advancement. 

While  Boston  was  thus  boldly  facing  the  awful  power 
of  England,  the  generous  enthusiasm  of  liberty  animated 
the  other  Colonies,  but  with  a  general  tendency  to  concil- 
iation. South  Carolina  steadily  adhered  to  the  non-im- 
portation agreement,  and  appointed  a  standing  executive 
committee.  Georgia  supported  the  correspondence  and  res- 
olutions of  Massachusetts.  North  Carolina  adopted  in  her 
Assembly  the  protest  of  Virginia.  The  Legislature  of  New 
York  moved  for  a  general  representative  body  to  be  com- 
posed of  delegates  from  each  Province.  Virginia  had  the 
pledge  by  its  Governor  of  the  royal  word,  renouncing  all  in- 
tention of  taxing  the  Colonies.  Maryland's  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor "  advised  "  to  give  up  the  tax,  and  the  Philadelphia 
merchants  were  still  for  non-importation,  but  under  less 
stringent  restrictions.  The  only  matter  of  complaint  among 
them  all  was  the  tax  upon  tea ;  all  other  obnoxious  meas- 
ures, such  as  the  Billeting  Act,  having  been  abandoned. 
Upon  the  principle  involved  in  the  assumed  right  to  tax  the 
Colonies  rested  the  whole  issue  between  them  and  Great 
Britain.  The  spirit,  however,  which  still  looked  hopefully 
for  redress  prevailed  less  in  Massachusetts,  where  the  con- 
tinual broils  between  the  Bostonians  and  the  troops  nursed 
the  rancor  of  both  parties. 

The  Massachusetts  Legislature  was  to  meet  on  the  10th 
of  January,  —  one  day  after  the  assembling  of  th*e  British 
Parliament.  Would  the  little  body  of  Provincial  statesmen 
still  refuse  to  legislate,  while  arbitrarily  removed  from  their 
ancient  and  legal  seat  of  government  ?    Would  wise  coun- 


292  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

sels  prevail  in  Parliament,  and  the  just  rights  of  America  be 
admitted  ?  The  new  year  was  to  decide  forever  the  fate  of 
the  Colonies,  and  involve  results  more  momentous  than  the 
most  far-seeing  could  estimate  in  their  effect  upon  Great 
Britain.  A  crisis  seemed  to  impend  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic.  In  Massachusetts,  the  plan  for  the  approaching 
session  was  probably  prepared.  It  was  to  demand  the  re- 
moval of  the  troops,  and  to  offer  an  uncompromising  oppo- 
sition to  any  legislation,  should  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
persist  in  illegally  convening  the  Assembly  at  Cambridge. 
Towards  the  close  of  the  year  Hutchinson  wrote  to  Lord 
Hillsborough :  — 

"  The  time  approaches  to  which  the  Assembly  stands  prorogued. 
As  I  have  received  no  instructions  from  England  to  the  contrary, 
nobody  doubts  its  sitting  to  do  business.  I  have  evidence  of  the 
declaration  of  one  or  more  of  the  members  of  this  town,  that  the 
first  attempt  shall  be  for  a  vote  to  insist  upon  the  troops  being  re- 
moved out  of  the  town.  I  am  taking  every  prudent  measure  in  my 
power  to  prevent  the  attempt  from  succeeding  in  the  House,  and  do 
not  despair  of  defeating  it." 

To  the  same  nobleman  he  writes  immediately  after,  having 
apparently  received  additional  information. 

"  Adams  has  declared  the  troops  must  move  to  the  Castle,  and 
that  it  must  be  the  first  business  of  the  Court  to  remove  them  out 
of  the  town. "  * 

If  the  design  of  this  was  to  have  Samuel  Adams  or  others 
transported  to  be  tried  for  treason,  the  idea  had  been  met 
more  than  half-way  from  England.  "  The  talk  is  strong  of 
bringing  them  over  and  trying  them  by  impeachment,"  said 
Mauduit  in  London.  "  Do  you  write  me  word  of  their  be- 
ing seized,  and  I  will  send  you  an  account  of  their  being 
hanged."*t 

The  public  liberties  were  at  this  time  contested  in  England 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Dec.  20,  1769. 

t  Israel  Mauduit  to  Hutchinson,  London,  Nov.  19, 1769. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  293 

with  unusual  violence  and  acrimony.  The  whole  nation 
was  convulsed  with  the  struggle  between  the  House  of  Com- 
mons and  the  Middlesex  electors,  and  reflecting  men  consid- 
ered that  the  crisis  involved  the  stability  of  the  government. 
Parliament  met  on  the  9th  of  January,  when  the  troubles  in 
Ireland,  the  revenue  difficulties  in  America,  and  the  disfran- 
chisement of  Wilkes,  together  occupied  their  entire  atten- 
tion. A  great  contest  had  been  going  on  between  the  aris- 
tocracy and  the  returned  wealthy  nabobs  from  Hindostan, 
desirous  of  obtaining  seats  and  influence  in  the  British  Leg- 
islature, on  the  one  side,  and  the  popular  element  declaring 
for  free  speech,  a  free  press,  and  unrestricted  rights,  on  the 
other.  Wilkes,  who  but  for  his  expulsion  from  the  House 
would  have  sunk  into  insignificance,  became  by  his  represen- 
tation of  the  prevailing  sentiment  the  most  prominent  man 
in  the  kingdom.  The  debate,  which  embraced  the  popular 
liberties  in  England  and  the  American  policy,  was  led  by 
Chatham  in  the  House  of  Lords,  where  he  now  reappeared 
after  two  years  absence,  and  combated  with  marked  elo- 
quence the  address  to  the  King  against  the  Colonies,  in 
which  he  was  joined  by  Lord  Camden,  who  "  proclaimed  to 
the  world  "  his  opposition  to  "  this  illegal  and  unconstitu- 
tional vote."  In  the  House  of  Commons  Barre*  stood  up,  as 
usual,  as  the  defender  of  American  rights.  Lord  North  re- 
plied that  he  would  never  acquiesce  in  the  absurd  opinion 
that  all  men  are  equal.  The  character  of  the  debates,  as 
well  as  the  votes,  showed  that  America  had  little  to  hope 
for,  and  that  the  determination  to  crush  out  the  principle  of 
constitutional  liberty  had  suffered  no  change  since  the  pre- 
vious winter. 

Late  in  January  the  Duke  of  Grafton  suddenly  resigned 
his  position  as  Prime  Minister,  and  Lord  North,  whose  pol- 
icy towards  the  Colonies  was  well  known,  assumed  the  reins 
of  government.  He  knew  the  will  of  his  master,  George  the 
Third ;  but  his  subsequent  course  proved  that  both  he  and 
the  stubborn  King  did  not  know  the  character  of  the  Ameri- 


294  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

can  people,  when  they  ignorantly  hugged  the  idea  of  driving 
them  into  a  compliance  with  an  infamous  tyranny.  Lord 
North  was  actuated  by  a  violent  hatred  of  popular  rights, 
and  a  blind  resolution  to  enforce  obedience  to  illegal  legisla- 
tion, before  relaxing  such  assumed  power ;  and  in  these  feel- 
ings he  was  confirmed  by  the  King,  whose  knowledge  of 
America  was  probably  confined  to  the  distorted  accounts 
coming  to  him  through  his  servants  in  the  Colonies. 

The  commencement  of  the  year  in  Massachusetts  was  sig- 
nalized by  a  new  exercise  of  arbitrary  power.  When  Ber- 
nard left  the  Province  for  England,  in  the  previous  summer, 
the  Legislature  stood  adjourned  to  the  10th  of  January,  1770  ; 
and,  as  we  have  seen  by  Hutchinson's  letter  already  quoted, 
it  was  to  have  met  then.  But  a  few  days  previous  to  that 
time,  instructions  were  received  from  the  Earl  of  Hillsbor- 
ough, directing  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  prorogue  the 
Court  to  meet  at  some  future  time  at  Cambridge.  This  out- 
rageous treatment  of  a  popular  legislative  body,  whose  move- 
ments, as  stipulated  by  charter,  were  only  dependent  upon 
the  directions  of  a  Governor  paid  by  the  people,  was  proba- 
bly by  Bernard's  advice,  who  had  in  November  received  the 
Appeal  to  the  World,  and,  with  the  Ministry,  had  perused 
the  newspaper  reports  of  the  non-importation  agreements. 
The  measure,  then,  was  retaliatory,  and  of  course  had  ex- 
actly the  reverse  of  the  intended  effect.  Hutchinson,  on 
receiving  the  order,  issued  a  proclamation  conformable  to  its 
directions.     On  the  10th  he  wrote :  — 

"  The  letters  by  the  November  packet  came  to  hand  the  3d  in- 
stant in  the  evening ;  and  the  next  morning  I  prorogued  the  Court 
to  the  second  Wednesday  in  March.  Some  of  the  distant  members 
will  be  on  their  journey  before  the  proclamation  reaches  them ;  and 
if  the  packet  had  not  had  a  better  passage  than  common,  my  orders 
would  have  found  the  Court  sitting.  I  thought  when  I  wrote  you, 
some  time  since,  that  a  proclamation  would  cause  a  great  clamor, 
and  therefore  wished  the  Court  might  meet.  There  is  less  than  I 
expected.    As  far  as  I  can  yet  judge,  the  party  seem  to  be  rather 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  295 

mortified  and  humbled  by  it  than  enraged.  I  am  convinced  that  it 
is  the  right  measure.  I  am  waiting  for  orders,  which  are  to  follow. 
.  .  .  .  l  Vindex '  is  undoubtedly  from  Adams.  It  appears  not  only 
by  the  style,  but  from  his  having  discovered  just  the  same  sentiments 
in  company  immediately  after  the  prorogation  of  the  Court."  * 

In  the  piece  referred  to  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  the 
validity  of  the  instruction  from  Hillsborough  for  the  proro- 
gation was  denied,  and  the  text  of  the  argument  was  the 
passage  in  the  charter  giving  to  the  Governor  for  the  time 
being  the  power  to  adjourn,  prorogue,  or  dissolve  the  As- 
sembly. 

"  The  power  delegated  by  this  clause  to  the  Governor,"  continues 
Mr.  Adams,  "  was  undoubtedly  intended  in  favor  of  the  people. 
The  necessity  and  importance  of  a  Legislative  in  being,  and  of  its 
having  the  opportunity  of  exerting  itself  upon  all  proper  occasions, 
must  be  obvious  to  a  man  of  common  discernment.  Its  grand  ob- 
ject is  the  redress  of  grievances,  and  for  this  purpose  it  is  adjudged 
that  parliaments  ought  to  be  held  frequently.  The  people  may  be 
aggrieved  for  the  want  of  having  a  good  law  made,  as  well  as  re- 
pealing a  bad  one  ;  so  they  may  be  by  the  maleconduct  of  the  Exec- 
utive in  its  manner  of  administering  justice  wrongfully  under  color 
of  law.  In  all  these  cases,  and  many  others,  the  necessity  of  the 
frequent  interposition  of  the  Legislative  evidently  appears  ;  and  if 
either  of  them  —  much  more  if  all  of  them  —  should  at  any  time  be 
justly  complained  of  by  the  people,  the  adjourning,  proroguing,  or 
dissolving  the  Legislative  at  such  a  juncture  must  be  the  greatest 
of  all  grievances.  There  may  be  other  reasons  for  the  sitting  of  an 
American  Assembly  besides  the  correcting  any  disorders  arising 
from  among  the  people  within  its  own  jurisdiction.  Some  of  the 
acts  of  the  British  Parliament  are  generally  thought  to  be  grievous 
in  their  operation  and  dangerous  in  their  consequences  to  the  lib- 
erties of  the  American  subjects.  An  American  Legislative,  there- 
fore, in  which  the  whole  body  of  the  people  is  represented,  ought 
certainly  to  have  the  opportunity  of  explaining  and  remonstrating 
their  grievances  to  the  British  Parliament,  and  the  full  exercise  of 
that  invaluable  and  uncontrollable  right  of  the  subject  to  petition 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Jan.  10,  1770. 


296  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan, 

the  King  as  often  as  they  judge  necessary,  till  they  are  removed. 
To  postpone  a  meeting  of  this  universal  body  of  the  people  till  it  is 
too  late  to  make  such  application  must  be  a  frustration  of  one  grand 
design  of  its  existence,  and  it  naturally  tends  to  other  arbitrary  ex- 
ertions. I  have  often  thought  that,  in  former  administrations,  such 
delays  to  call  the  General  Assembly  were  intended  for  the  purpose 
above  mentioned ;  and  if  others  should  have  the  same  apprehension 
at  present,  I  cannot  help  it,  nor  am  I  answerable  for  it.  It  may 
not  be  amiss,  however,  for  every  man  to  make  it  a  subject  of  his 
contemplation.  We  all  remember  that,  no  longer  ago  than  the  last 
year,  the  extraordinary  dissolution  by  Governor  Bernard,  in  which 
he  declared  he  was  merely  ministerial,  produced  another  assembly, 
which,  though  legal  in  all  its  proceedings,  awaked  an  attention  in 
the  very  soul  of  the  British  Empire."  * 

With  the  close  of  the  year  the  non-importation  expired  by 
limitation  ;  and  induced  by  the  increased  price  of  tea,  some, 
who  had  reluctantly  entered  into  the  stipulation  rather  than 
face  public  resentment,  now  commenced  to  sell.  Among 
these  were  Thomas  and  Elisha,  the  sons  of  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  who  hastened  with  the  new  year  to  make  secret 
sales,  having  broken  open  the  warehouse  of  which  they  had 
given  the  town  committee  the  key  three  months  before. 
Hutchinson,  whose  besetting  sin  was  covetousness,  could  not 
withstand  the  temptation  offered  by  the  enhanced  prices ; 
and  his  sons,  who  were  his  agents,  probably  renewed  their 
business  at  his  advice.  They  had  solemnly  agreed  to  make 
no  more  sales  until  a  general  importation  should  commence, 
which  could  only  be  when  the  obnoxious  duties  were  entirely 
repealed.  The  example  was  particularly  dangerous,  consid- 
ering the  family  position  of  the  recusants  ;  for,  if  they  were 
allowed  to  make  sales  with  impunity,  their  great  profits 
would  be  a  powerful  stimulant  to  others  in  humble  circum- 
stances. Mr.  Adams,  as  "  Determinatus,"  attacked  them 
and  members  of  other  Tory  families  for  their  breach  of 
faith. 

*  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  8,  1770. 


1770.] 


LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  297 


"  It  is  no  wonder  then,"  he  says,  "  that  it  was  opposed  with  so 
much  vehemence  at  first  by  the  cabal,  who  knew  full  well  that  their 
places  and  their  pensions  and  all  the  delectable  profits  which  they 
expected  to  reap,  and  are  now  actually  reaping  at  the  expense  of  the 
people  in  the  town  and  country,  would  entirely  cease,  if  these  acts, 
by  means  of  which  their  places,  pensions,  and  profits  arise,  should  be 
repealed.  When  they  could  no  longer,  with  any  face,  call  it '  the 
last  efforts  of  a  dying  faction,'  (for  the  measure  was  so  rational  and 
pacific  that  it  soon  spread  far  and  wide,  and  was  cheerfully  adopted 
by  all  the  disinterested  friends  of  the  country  throughout  the  conti- 
nent,) they  put  on  the  appearance  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  and  now 
their  cry  is,  '  Where  is  that  liberty  so  much  boasted  of  and  contended 
for  ? '  We  hear  them  very  gravely  asking, '  Have  we  not  a  right  to 
carry  on  our  own  trade  and  sell  our  own  goods  if  we  please  ?  Who 
shall  hinder  us  ? '  This  is  now  the  language  of  those  who  had  be- 
fore seen  the  axe  laid  at  the  very  root  of  all  our  rights  with  appar- 
ent complacency.  And  pray,  gentlemen,  have  you  not  a  right,  if 
you  please,  to  set  fire  to  your  own  houses  because  they  are  your 
own,  though  in  all  probability  it  will  destroy  a  whole  neighborhood, 
perhaps  a  whole  city?  Where  did  you  learn  that  in  a  state  or 
society  you  had  a  right  to  do  as  you  please,  and  that  it  was  an  in- 
fringement of  that  right  to  restrain  you  ?  This  is  a  refinement 
which,  I  dare  say,  the  true  Sons  of  Liberty  despise.  Be  pleased  to 
be  informed  that  you  are  bound  to  conduct  yourselves  as  the  society 
with  which  you  are  joined  are  pleased  to  have  you  conduct,  or,  if 
you  please,  you  may  leave  it.  It  is  true,  the  will  and  pleasure  of 
the  society  is  generally  declared  in  its  laws,  but  there  may  be  ex- 
ceptions, and  the  present  case  is  without  doubt  one.  Suppose  there 
was  no  law  of  the  society  to  restrain  you  from  murdering  your  own 
father ;  what  think  you  ?  if  either  of  you  should  please  to  take  it 
into  your  head  to  perpetrate  such  a  villanous  act,  so  abhorrent  to 
the  will  of  the  society,  would  you  not  be  restrained  ?  And  is  the 
liberty  of  your  country  of  less  importance  than  the  life  of  your 
father  ? 

"  But  what  is  most  astonishing  is,  that  some  two  or  three  persons, 
of  very  little  consequence  in  themselves,  have  dared  openly  to  give 
out  that  they  will  vend  the  goods  they  have  imported,  though  they 
have  solemnly  pledged  their  faith  to  the  body  of  merchants  that  they 
should  remain  in  store  till  a  general  importation  should  take  place ! 


298  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

Where  then  is  the  honor,  where  is  the  shame,  of  these  persons,  who 
can  look  into  the  faces  of  those  very  men  with  whom  they  have  con- 
tracted, and  tell  them,  without  blushing,  that  they  are  resolved  to 
violate  the  contract !  Is  it  avarice  ?  Is  it  obstinacy,  perverseness, 
pride,  or  from  what  root  of  bitterness  does  such  an  unaccountable  de- 
fection from  the  laws  of  honor,  honesty,  and  even  humanity  spring  ? 
Is  it  the  authority  of  an  unnatural  parent,  the  advice  of  some  false 
friend,  or  their  own  want  of  common  understanding  and  the  first 
principles  of  virtue,  by  which  these  unhappy  young  persons  have 
been  induced  or  left  to  resolve  upon  perpetrating  that  at  the  very 
thought  of  which  they  should  have  shuddered.  By  this  resolution 
they  have  already  disgraced  themselves  :  if  they  have  the  hardiness 
to  put  the  resolution  into  practice,  who  will  ever  hereafter  confide 
in  them  ?  Can  they  promise  themselves  the  regards  of  the  respect- 
able body  of  merchants  whom  they  have  affronted  ?  Or  can  they 
even  wish  for  the  esteem  of  their  country  which  they  have  basely 
deserted ;  or  worse,  which  they  have  attempted  to  wound  in  the 
very  heart  ?  If  they  imagine  they  can  still  weary  the  patience  of 
an  injured  country  with  impunity,  if  —  I  will  not  utter  it,  —  would 
not  the  grateful  remembrance  of  unmerited  kindness  and  generosity, 
if  there  was  the  least  spark  of  ingenuity  left,  have  influenced  to  a  far 
different  resolution  ?  If  this  agreement  of  the  merchants  is  of  that 
consequence  to  all  America  which  our  brethren  in  all  the  other 
governments,  and  in  Great  Britain  itself,  think  it  to  be,  —  if  the 
fate  of  unborn  millions  is  suspended  upon  it,  —  verily  it  behooves 
not  the  merchants  only,  but  every  individual  of  every  class,  in  city 
and  country,  to  aid  and  support  them,  and  peremptorily  to  insist 
upon  its  being  strictly  adhered  to ! "  * 

This  and  all  other  appeals  had;  no  effect  upon  men  actu- 
ated by  greed,  and  lost  to  any  appreciation  of  the  spirit  which 
animated  the  more  patriotic  dealers.  On  the  16th,  a  meet- 
ing of  merchants  was  called,  who  proceeded  in  a  body  to 
Hutchinson's  residence  in  Garden  Court,  and  demanded  that 
the  goods  should  be  restored.  The  assemblage,  which  was 
swelled  by  accessions  from  the  other  inhabitants,  gathered  in 
front  of  the  house.     Hutchinson  threw  up  the  window,  and 

*  "  Determinatus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  8,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE   OP  "SAMUEL  ADAMS.  299 

"  warned  them  of  their  illegal,  riotous  proceedings,  and  re- 
quired them  to  disperse."  —  "We  have  come  to  treat  with 
your  sons,"  was  the  reply,  "  who  have  violated  their  con- 
tract to  which  their  honor  was  pledged."  Hutchinson  re- 
sponded that  "  a  contract  without  a  valuable  consideration 
was  not  valid  in  law."  But,  after  all,  he  considered  it  best  to 
comply ;  and  on  the  following  day  he  agreed  with  William 
Phillips,  the  moderator  of  the  meeting,  to  deposit  a  sum  of 
money  in  place  of  the  tea  that  had  been  sold,  and  that  the 
rest  should  be  returned,  to  which  the  meeting  assented.  No 
sooner  had  this  arrangement  been  perfected  than  his  Honor 
repented  of  the  concession,  and  was  accused  by  his  friends 
of  cowardice.  He  never  forgave  himself  for  it,  and  laments 
it  in  his  History,  as  "  having  been  done  without  sufficiently 
considering  the  consequences."  He  wrote  apologetical  let- 
ters to  England,  hoping  "  that  a  single  error  in  judgment 
would  not  cancel  more  than  thirty  years'  laborious  and 
disinterested  services  in  support  of  government."  To  Sir 
Francis  Bernard,  he  says  of  the  merchants'  meeting :  — 

"Justices  of  peace,  selectmen,  representatives,  constables,  and 
other  officers,  who  ought  to  have  discountenanced  this  meeting, 
made  a  part  of  it.  Some  of  your  friends  and  mine  wish  matters 
had  gone  to  extremities,  this  being  a  good  time  as  any  to  have 
called  out  the  troops."  * 

A  Bevolutionary  anecdote  illustrating  Samuel  Adams's 
skill  in  dealing  with  mankind  has  been  handed  down  as  oc- 
curring either  at  the  above-named  meeting,  or  another  shortly 
before  it.  The  object  was  to  bring  all  the  dealers  into  the 
non-importation  scheme  ;  but  a  Scotchman,  a  large  importer, 
refused  to  join  the  association.  Though  many  were  enraged 
at  the  persistency  of  the  merchant,  Mr.  Adams,  who  was 
present,  discouraged  angry  words,  for  the  suaviter  in  modo 
was  a  prominent  trait  in  his  energetic  character.  The  com- 
mittee from  the  meeting,  who  had  been  directed  to  call  on 
the  stubborn  Scotchman,  and  had  been  repelled  by  him, 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Jan.  21,  1770. 


300  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

were  deputed  to  visit  the  recusant  again,  but  they  returned 
with  the  same  answer ;  when  Mr.  Adams  arose  and  moved 
that  the  Assembly  (of  about  two  thousand  persons)  should 
resolve  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole  house,  and  wait 

upon  Mr.  Mac at  the  close  of  the  meeting,  to  urge  his 

compliance  with  the  general  wish ;  which  being  agreed  to 
without  a  dissenting  voice,  they  proceeded  to  transact  the 
business  before  them.  The  sagacious  patriot  knew  that  the 
man  in  question  had  personal  friends  present,  some  of  whom 
immediately  slipped  away  to  inform  him  that  the  whole  body 
would  shortly  wait  upon  him.  The  result  was  as  Mr.  Adams 
had  anticipated.     In  the  midst  of  their  deliberations  on  other 

subjects,  in  rushed  Mr.  Mac all  in  a  foam,  and,  bowing 

to  the  chairman  and  to  Mr.  Adams,  told  them  that  he  was 
ready  and  willing  to  put  his  name  to  the  non-importation 
pledge.  Another  account  says  that  he  was  hiding  in  an  ob- 
scure position  in  the  hall,  when  he  heard  his  name  called 
among  the  recusants,  followed  by  the  proposition  to  visit 
him  en  masse;  upon  which  he  sprang  out  of  his  retreat,  rap- 
idly repeating  in  a  squeaking  voice  and  with  a  Scotch  accent, 
"  Mr.  Moderator,  I  agree  !  I  agree  !  "  This  unexpected  in- 
terruption in  a  foreign  brogue,  from  a  diminutive,  grotesque 
figure,  covered  with  a  reddish  smoke-dried  wig,  drew  all  eyes 
upon  him;  and  his  sudden  conversion,  and  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  obtained,  brought  forth  thunders  of  applause. 
Mr.  Adams  pointed  to  a  seat  near  him,  with  a  polite,  conde- 
scending bow  of  protection,  and  so  quieted  the  alarm  of  the 
discreet  Scotchman.* 

The  blood-thirsty  suggestion  in  Hutchinson's  letter  to 
Bernard  was  a  true  index  to  the  disposition  of  the  crown 
officers.  Their  object  was  to  see  employment  given  to  the 
troops,  whose  inactivity  was  as  humiliating  to  them  as  it  was 
irritating  to  the  soldiers.  Hutchinson  used  every  effort  to 
suppress  the  meetings  of  the  merchants,  —  to  one  of  which 

*  Magoon's  Orators  of  the  Revolution,  pp.  107, 108 ;  and  another  version  as 
related  by  Mrs.  Hannah  Wells. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  301 

he  sent  a  letter,  requiring  them  in  his  Majesty's  name  to  dis- 
perse. The  refusal  was  in  Hancock's  handwriting,  and  he 
put  the  autograph  carefully  by,  to  be  used  against  the  writer 
when  he  should  be  tried  for  his  treasonable  practices.  The 
spirits  of  the  people  suffered  no  depression  from  these  at- 
tempts, but  rather  rose  with  the  occasion.  They  must  have 
foreseen  that  the  frequent  frays  with  the  troops  would  lead 
at  last  to  some  tragedy ;  and  though  many  despised  the  mil- 
itary power,  knowing  that  in  an  extremity  an  overwhelming 
force  could  be  obtained  from  the  country  to  exterminate  the 
invaders,  yet  the  constant  threat  revealed  the  nearness  of 
bloodshed.  Conflicts,  resulting  in  bruises  and  wounds  on 
both  sides,  were  taking  place  in  New  York,  where  tfye  sol- 
diers, after  repeated  repulses  from  the  people,  succeeded  in 
cutting  down  the  liberty  pole.  In  every  Colony  a  bold  front 
was  presented.  Hutchinson  thought  that  the  commotion  in 
Massachusetts,  in  1740,  (probably  referring  to  the  affair  of 
the  Land  Bank,  to  which  he  had  been  a  bitter  opponent,) 
was  a  peccadillo  compared  to  the  combinations  now  afloat  in 
so  many  Colonies. 

"  That,"  he  said,  "  was  thought  to  deserve  an  act  of  Parliament, 
and  all  who  continued  in  it  were  subjected  to  the  penalties  of  the 
Act  of  Premunire.  These,  therefore,  which  are  absolutely  incom- 
patible with  a  state  of  government,  can  never  be  overlooked.  Here 
they  are  declared  to  be  legal.  The  town  of  Boston  say  so  in  their 
last  meeting.  At  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  York,  the  au- 
thorities sit  still  and  rather  approve  of  them."  * 

The  news  of  the  conflicts  in  New  York  encouraged  the 
people  of  Boston,  and  the  utmost  vigilance  was  exercised  to 
enforce  the  agreements  against  both  the  importation  and 
consumption  of  tea.  Spirited  resolutions  had  already  been 
adopted  at  a  meeting  of  citizens  in  Faneuil  Hall,  "  to  totally 
abstain  from  the  use  of  tea  ";  and  now,  in  the  month  of  Feb- 
ruary, the  mistresses  of  four  hundred  and  ten  families  formed 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  October,  1769. 


302  LIFE  OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Feb. 

an  association  to  drink  no  more  tea  until  the  Revenue  Act 
was  repealed.  A  few  days  later  —  on  the  12th  —  a  hundred 
and  twenty  young  ladies  followed  the  example  of  the  ma- 
trons, subscribing  to  a  league,  and  binding  themselves  by 
an  agreement  in  which  they  say :  — 

"  We,  the  daughters  of  those  patriots,  who  have,  and  do  now  ap- 
pear for  the  public  interest,  and  in  that  principally  regard  their  pos- 
terity,—  as  such  do  with  pleasure  engage  with  them  in  denying 
ourselves  the  drinking  of  foreign  tea,  in  hopes  to  frustrate  a  plan 
which  tends  to  deprive  a  whole  community  of  all  that  is  valuable 
in  life." 

This  was  no  common  deprivation ;  for,  in  that  day,  more 
than  at  present,  tea-drinking  parties  among  the  ladies  were 
a  source  of  peculiar  social  enjoyment.  The  importance  at- 
tached by  the  government  to  that  one  article,  as  a  test  of  the 
principle  of  taxation,  indicates  how  extensive  was  the  use  of 
tea  in  the  Colonies.  From  this  time  forth,  until  the  close 
of  the  royal  authority  in  Massachusetts,  tea  was  regarded  as 
the  bane  of  popular  liberty.  Few  families  had  the  hardihood 
to  make  use  of  it,  and  a  jealous  watch  was  maintained  to 
prevent  its  selling.  The  importers  had  no  peace.  People 
pointed  them  out  as  proscribed  men,  and  boys  hooted  at 
them  in  the  streets,  while  their  customers  were  interrupted 
passing  to  and  from  their  shops  and  houses. 

The  result  was  the  shedding  of  the  first  blood  in  Boston. 
On  the  22d  of  February,  a  party  of  boys  set  up  a  large  wood- 
en head  and  a  board,  on  which  were  painted  the  figures  of 
four  of  the  importers,  in  front  of  the  house  of  Theophilus 
Lillie,  one  of  the  violators  of  the  agreement.  A  post  was 
also  planted,  with  a  hand  pointing  towards  his  door.  Rich- 
ardson, a  well-known  informer,  who  lived  near  by,  vainly 
endeavored  to  persuade  a  countryman  and  others  to  drive 
their  carts  against  it.  The  by-standers,  becoming  incensed 
at  these  attempts,  interfered ;  and  the  informer  retreated 
towards  his  own  house,  where  some  insulting  language  fol- 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  303 

lowed  on  both  sides.  Some  of  the  boys  threw  missiles  at 
him,  compelling  him  to  shut  himself  in,  upon  which  he 
opened  a  window,  and  fired  with  his  gun  upon  the  crowd, 
severely  wounding  a  son  of  Captain  John  Gore  and  mortally 
wounding  another  boy,  Christopher  Snyder,  about  eleven 
years  of  age,  who  died  on  the  following  evening.  "  The  boy 
that  was  killed,"  observes  Hutchinson,  in  his  History,  "  was 
the  son  of  a  poor  German.  A  grand  funeral  was,  however, 
judged  very  proper  for  him."  *  The  man  who  could  cringe 
to  the  powerful,  and  saw  virtue  only  in  wealth  and  station, 
evidently  estimated  the  value  of  the  life  in  proportion  to  the 
financial  condition  of  the  bereaved  family.  He  had  yet  to 
learn  the  significance  of  the  democratic  philosophy,  .whose 
doctrines  were  revolutionizing  a  continent  and  brushing 
away  the  flimsy  distinctions  of  birth  and  money.  The  fu- 
neral, which  took  place  on  the  26th,  was  attended  by  a  great 
procession  of  young  and  old,  marching  in  solemn  order  from 
Liberty-Tree  to  the  Town-House,  and  thence  to  the  burying- 
ground.f 

It  has  been  said  in  palliation  of  Richardson's  crime,  that 
he  was  grossly  insulted  by  the  populace,  causing  him  to  fire 
in  a  moment  of  rashness.  An  impartial  view  of  the  case  ad- 
mits of  but  one  conclusion.  Having  gained  his  house  he  was 
not  in  danger,  and  the  vindictive  firing  from  a  window,  while 
it  could  not  possibly  intimidate  the  crowd,  would  rather  exas- 
perate them  the  more,  and  was  as  likely  to  kill  the  innocent 
as  the  guilty.  Besides,  by  taking  the  law  into  his  own  hands, 
he  volunteered  a  direct  issue  with  the  people  ;  and  that  he 
went  out  of  his  way  to  encounter  them,  when  justly  excited 
by  the  illegal  attempts  against  their  rights,  is  shown  by  his 
interference  with  the  only  peaceable  methods  by  which  they 
could  express  their  detestation  of  those  who  had  violated  the 
non-importation  agreements.    Immediately  after  the  murder, 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  269. 

t  Boston  papers,  during  February,  1770.  Drake's  History  of  Boston,  p. 
776.     Bancroft,  VI.  333. 


304  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.        [Feb. —  Apr.,  1770. 

the  house  was  broken  open,  and  Richardson  and  one  Wil- 
mot,  whom  they  found  with  a  heavily  loaded  gun,  were 
arrested  and  taken  before  a  number  of  Justices  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  where  an  examination  took  place  in  the  presence  of  at 
least  a  thousand  people,  resulting  in  the  committal  of  both 
to  prison ;  and  but  for  the  interposition  of  some  gentlemen 
of  influence,  the  prisoners  would  have  been  torn  to  pieces  on 
their  way  to  the  jail.  In  the  trial,  which  took  place  in  April 
following,  Josiah  Quincy  and  Blowers  appeared  for  the  de- 
fence, and  Samuel  Quincy  and  Robert  Treat  Paine  of  Taun- 
ton for  the  crown.  Wilmot  was  acquitted,  but  Richardson 
was  found  guilty  of  murder.  Hutchinson,  who  was  Chief 
Justice,  considering  the  case  as  one  of  justifiable  homicide, 
refused  to  sign  the  warrant  for  his  execution ;  and  two  years 
afterwards,  on  application  to  the  King,  he  was  pardoned. 
If  Richardson  was  justifiable  in  his  vengeful  shooting  into  a 
crowd,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  Americans  throughout 
the  continent  were  right  in  the  vindication  of  their  liberties. 
He  had  unnecessarily  courted  their  resentment,  and  com- 
menced the  difficulty  which  ended  in  his  murderous  act. 
Death,  however,  would  perhaps  have  been  too  severe  a 
penalty  under  the  circumstances ;  and  the  extreme  verdict 
of  murder  gave  the  Executive  no  alternative  between  ex- 
ecution and  pardon. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

Justice  of  the  American  Cause.  —  Loyalty  and  Moderation  of  the  Colonists.  — 
The  Issue  forced  upon  them.  —  Remonstrances  against  the  Presence  of 
Troops  in  Boston.  —  Indications  of  an  approaching  Collision  between  them 
and  the  Citizens.  —  The  Soldiers  impatient  for  Blood. — Affrays  at  the 
Ropewalks.  —  The  Soldiers  are  beaten  and  seek  for  Vengeance.  —  Blood- 
shed preconcerted  among  them.  —  Scenes  on  the  Evening  of  the  5th  of 
March.  —Brutality  of  the  Troops.  —  Gathering  of  the  People.  — The  "  "Bed 
Cloak  and  White  Wig."  —  The  Massacre  in  King  Street. 

Whoever  will  reflect  upon  the  series  of  events  occurring 
between  the  winter  of  1768  and  the  spring  of  1770  will  find 
a  loyal  and  sensitive  people,  proud  of  their  British  birth  and 
freedom,  and  ever  ready  to  support  and  defend  their  sover- 
eign, wrought  to  indignation  by  a  system  of  the  grossest  in- 
justice and  infringements  on  their  chartered  rights.  Smart- 
ing under  injurious  misrepresentations  made  by  the  instru- 
ments of  their  oppression,  they  had  seen  their  dutiful  peti- 
tions spurned  by  those  whose  pride  it  should  have  been  to 
protect  them  ;  and  when  a  persistence  in  the  acts  of  tyranny 
and  the  insulting  conduct  of  the  crown  officers  had  led  to  a 
series  of  peaceful  measures  for  redress,  —  measures  which  the 
Attorney  and  Solicitor  General  of  England,  after  the  severest 
scrutiny,  had  pronounced  to  be  legal  and  containing  no  overt 
act  of  treason,  —  they  had  been  accused  of  sedition ;  and  an 
infamous  act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  was  dug  up  from  the  ob- 
livion of  the  past,  to  transport  them  to  England  to  be  tried 
for  their  lives,  away  from  their  friends  and  witnesses.  A 
succession  of  fatal  stabs  had  been  dealt  to  the  most  precious 
privilege  of  British  subjects.  The  great  principle  of  the  ille- 
gality of  taxation  without  representation  —  the  most  estima- 
ble of  all  the  British  rights  guaranteed  by  Magna  Charta 
—  had  been  struck  down ;  and  to  crown  all,  an  armed  force, 

VOL.    I.  20 


306  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

that  favorite  weapon  of  tyrants,  had  been  quartered  upon 
the  people  to  enforce  their  obedience  to  a  system  which  the 
most  illustrious  statesmen  of  England  had  viewed  with  grief 
and  horror,  and  had  denounced  as  unjust  with  all  the  force 
of  eloquence  and  reasoning.  A  more  righteous  cause  never 
animated  human  breast  than  theirs.  They  demanded  sim- 
ply the  privileges  belonging  to  all  other  subjects  of  Great 
Britain,  —  privileges  which  no  one  pretended  to  deny  to  such 
as  resided  in  England.  It  was  little  to  ask,  but  it  involved 
their  liberties  and  those  of  their  posterity  forever.  Those 
great  intellects  in  the  British  Parliament,  whose  sagacious 
minds  reached  far  into  the  future,  saw  and  knew  the  justice 
of  the  demand ;  and  the  most  magnificent  bursts  of  Parlia- 
mentary eloquence  which  adorn  the  pages  of  English  history 
are  those  arising  from  the  generous  advocacy  of  American 
rights. 

We  must  thus  look  back  from  the  point  we  have  reached 
in  order  properly  to  estimate  the  position  of  the  people  of 
Boston  at  this  juncture.  They  had  right  on  their  side,  and 
their  opposition  was  always  carefully  kept  within  the  limits 
of  the  law.  Not  one  act  had  been  committed  that  could  af- 
ford their  enemies  the  slightest  hold  upon  them.  Read  any 
account,  and  when  sifted  to  the  truth,  it  will  appear  that 
nothing  was  done  hastily,  nor  was  any  measure  accomplished 
which  Britons  should  not  have  felt  proud  of,  as  evincing  a 
spirit  and  loyalty  combined  honorable  to  their  race.  To 
have  tamely  submitted  without  remonstrance  to  the  insane 
policy  inaugurated  by  Grenville  would  have  been  to  give 
the  lie  to  their  ancestry,  and  to  put  to  shame  the  efforts  of 
their  great  advocates  in  Parliament.  Exasperated  by  the 
presence  of  the  soldiers,  whose  bloodthirsty  desires  were 
well  known,  and  sensible  that  all  conciliatory  means  had 
been  exhausted,  the  people  of  Boston  cannot  be  blamed  for 
viewing  the  troops  as  foreign  enemies ;  and  when  we  con- 
sider the  aggravating  events  of  the  past  two  years,  it  is  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  bloody  meetings  did  not  occur  shortly 
after  the  arrival  of  the  military. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  307 

Bruising  affrays  between  the  soldiers  and  the  people  had 
become  common  occurrences,  and  had  stung  the  minds 
of  both  to  a  pitch  where  a  fatal  collision  could  not  much 
longer  be  averted.  Should  it  occur,  upon  whom  should  the 
blame  be  placed  ?  Each  party  cordially  hated  the  other. 
The  presence  of  the  soldiers  caused  the  strife,  and  upon  those 
who  had  sent  for  them  should  rest  the  responsibility.  If,  in 
the  frequent  fist  and  cudgel  encounters  in  different  parts  of 
the  town,  that  party  who  controlled  the  murderous  weapons 
of  death  should  slaughter  the  others,  however  much  exasper- 
ated, what  other  word  but  "  massacre  "  could  suit  the  case  ? 
And  this  is  especially  so,  if  the  most  irrefragible  evidence 
exists  that  the  military  had  repeatedly  expressed  their  savage 
wish  for  an  opportunity  to  fire  upon  the  people.  The  events 
which  occurred  early  in  March,  1770,  have  been  recounted 
by  more  than  one  recent  narrator  as  having  been  produced 
by  the  assaults  of  the  people  upon  the  soldiers,  who  fired  in 
self-defence.  The  proofs  to  the  contrary  are  voluminous. 
That  the  soldiers,  disgusted  with  their  long  inaction,  and 
maddened  by  their  inability  to  interfere  with  the  legal  pro- 
ceedings of  the  townspeople,  were  impatient  to  fire,  there  is 
abundant  evidence.  The  letters  of  General  Gage,  reporting 
the  language  of  Col.  Dalrymple,  those  of  Hutchinson,  and 
many  affidavits,  show  the  anxiety  of  the  soldiery  to  be  let 
loose  upon  the  citizens ;  and  such  desires  were  constantly 
sharpened  by  the  results  of  their  broils  with  the  working- 
men,  who  were  always  eager  to  test  the  assumed  physical 
superiority  of  their  antagonists,  and  were  misled  by  impru- 
dent and  headstrong  advisers,  who  knew  how  to  inflame 
the  passions  of  their  hearers,  and  who  considered  that 
the  cause  would  be  assisted  by  precipitating  a  collision. 
For  such  men  prudence  is  stupid  inaction;  and  the  far- 
seeing  caution  which  waits  calmly  for  events,  the  tameness 
of  submission.  Knowing  the  rancor  existing  between  the 
people  and  the  soldiers,  the  officers  could  have  kept  their 
men  within  the  barracks  at  proper  hours.     The  shedding  of 


308  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

blood  might  thus  have  been  prevented,  but  a  lack  of  care  on 
both  sides  hastened  the  event.  The  first  affair  of  any  im- 
portance occurred  on  Friday,  the  second  day  of  March. 
There  now  remained  the  Fourteenth  and  Twenty-ninth  Reg- 
iments in  the  town,  the  latter  of  whom  had  been  stationed 
near  Gray's  and  Mr.  Neill's  ropewalks,  where  the  workmen 
were  generally  high-spirited  young  men,  and  ready  at  all 
times  for  a  brush.  The  proximity  of  the  barracks  to  this 
place  soon  brought  the  hands  and  the  troops  into  hostile 
positions.  Two  of  the  soldiers  had  previously  encountered 
one  of  the  ropewalk  men  near  the  foot  of  King  Street,  where 
he  knocked  them  down  for  some  insult.  Several  of  the  sol- 
diers armed  themselves  with  clubs  and  swords,  and  proceed- 
ed to  Gray's  ropewalk,  vowing  revenge.  The  result  of  their 
visit  is  given  in  the  affidavits  taken  several  days  later  to  trace 
the  origin  of  the  massacre  which  soon  after  occurred. 

(No.  5.) 

"  I,  Nicholas  Feriter,  of  lawful  age,  testify  that  on  Friday,  the  2d 
instant,  about  half  after  eleven  o'cloek,  A.  m.,  a  soldier  of  the  29th 
Regiment  came  to  Mr.  John  Gray's  ropewalks,  and,  looking  into  one 
of  the  windows,  said,  "By  God,  I'll  have  satisfaction!"  with  many 
other  oaths  ;  at  the  last  he  said,  he  was  not  afraid  of  any  one  in  the 
ropewalks.  I  stepped  out  of  the  window  and  speedily  knocked  up 
his  heels.  On  falling,  his  coat  flew  open,  and  a  naked  sword  ap- 
peared ;  which  one  John  Wilson,  following  me  out,  took  from  him, 
and  brought  into  the  ropewalks.  The  soldier  then  went  to  Green's 
barrack,  and  in  about  twenty  minutes  returned  with  eight  or  nine 
more  soldiers  armed  with  clubs,  and  began,  as  I  was  told,  with  three 
or  four  men  in  Mr.  Gray's  warehouse,  asking  them  why  they  had 
abused  the  soldier  aforesaid  ?  These  men  in  the  warehouse  passed 
the  word  down  the  walk  for  the  hands  to  come  up,  which  they  did, 
and  soon  beat  them  off.  In  a  few  minutes  the  soldiers  appeared 
again  at  the  same  place,  reinforced  to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty, 
armed  with  clubs  and  cutlasses,  and  headed  by  a  tall  negro  drummer 
with  a  cutlass  chained  to  his  body,  with  which,  at  first  rencounter,  I 
received  a  cut  on  the  head;  but  being  immediately  supported  by 


1770.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  309 

nine  or  ten  more  of  the  ropemakers,  armed  with  their  wouldring- 
sticks,  we  again  beat  them  off.     And  further  I  say  not." 

(No.  6.) 
"I,  Jeffrey  Richardson,  of  lawful  age,  testify  and  say  that  on  Fri- 
day, the  2d  instant,  about  eleven  o'clock,  a.  m.,  eight  or  ten  soldiers 
of  the  Twenty-ninth  Regiment,  armed  with  clubs,  came  to  Mr.  John 
Gray's  ropewalks,  and  challenged  all  the  ropemakers  to  come  out  and 
fight  them.  All  the  hands  then  present,  to  the  number  of  thirteen 
or  fourteen,  turned  out  with  their  wouldring-sticks,  and  beat  them  off 
directly.  They  very  speedily  returned  to  the  ropewalk,  reinforced  to 
the  number  of  thirty  or  forty,  and  headed  by  a  tall  negro  drummer, 
again  challenged  them  out ;  which  the  same  hands  accepting,  again 
beat  them  off  with  considerable  bruises.     And  further  I  say  not." 

(No.  8.) 
"  I,  John  Hill,  aged  sixty-nine,  testify  that  in  the  forenoon  of  Fri- 
day, the  2d  of  March  current,  I  was  at  a  house,  the  corner  of  a  pas- 
sage-way leading  from  Atkinson's  Street  to  Mr.  John  Gray's  rope- 
walks,  near  Green's  Barracks,  so  called,  when  I  saw  eight  or  ten 
soldiers  pass  the  window  with  clubs.  I  immediately  got  up  and 
went  to  the  door,  and  found  them  returning  from  the  ropewalks  to 
the  barracks  ;  whence  they  again  very  speedily  reappeared,  now  in- 
creased to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty,  armed  with  clubs  and  other 
weapons.  In  this  latter  company  was  a  tall  negro  drummer,  to 
whom  I  called, '  You  black  rascal,  what  have  you  to  do  with  white 
people's  quarrels  ? '  He  answered,  '  I  suppose  I  may  look  on/  and 
went  forward.  I  went  out  directly,  antl  commanded  the  peace,  tell- 
ing them  I  was  in  commission.  But  they,  not  regarding  me,  knocked 
down  a  ropemaker  in  my  presence ;  and  two  or  three  of  them  beat- 
ing him  with  clubs,  I  endeavored  to  relieve  him ;  but  on  approach- 
ing the  fellows  who  were  mauling  him,  one  of  them  with  a  great  club 
struck  at  me  with  such  violence,  that  had  I  not  happily  avoided,  it 
might  have  been  fatal  to  me.  The  party  last  mentioned  rushed  in 
towards  the  ropewalks,  and  attacked  the  ropemakers  nigh  the  tar- 
kettle,  but  were  soon  beat  off,  drove  out  of  the  passage-way  by  which 
they  entered,  and  were  followed  by  the  ropemakers,  whom  I  persuad- 
ed to  go  back,  and  they  readily  obeyed.     And  further  I  say  not." ' 

1  Depositions  in  the  Appendix  of  A  Short  Narrative  of  the  Horrid  Massa- 
cre in  Boston,  etc. 


310  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

Mr.  Gray,  the  proprietor,  here  interposed,  and  subse- 
quently called  on  Colonel  Dalrymple  in  relation  to  the  affair. 
The  commander  admitted  that  Mr.  Gray's  account  agreed 
with  what  he  had  heard  from  his  own  people,  but  that  one 
of  the  hands  in  the  ropewalk  had  been  the  aggressor  by 
using  some  coarse  language  to  a  soldier.  The  offending 
journeyman,  William  Green,  was  thereupon  discharged  as 
an  example  to  the  rest.1  The  soldiers,  however,  considered 
that  the  honor  of  their  regiment  was  tarnished,  and  they 
prepared  for  revenge  on  the  following  Monday,  and  made 
bludgeons  for  the  contest.  On  Sunday  evening  some  of 
them  went  about  among  their  particular  acquaintances,  ad- 
vising them  not  to  be  abroad  on  Monday  night,  as  there  was 
to  be  bloodshed.  In  most  of  these  instances  they  gave  the 
warning  impressively,  and  repeated  it  a  number  of  times, 
urging  the  listeners  to  remain  within  doors,  and  conveying 
the  idea  that  some  tragedy  was  in  preparation.  Threats 
were  made  that  they  "  would  wet  their  swords  or  bayonets 
in  New  England  people's  blood."  2  Mr.  Adams,  who  was 
well  qualified  to  know,  was  afterwards  convinced,  and  so 
stated  publicly,  that  a  sanguinary  scene  had  been  precon- 
certed among  the  soldiers. 3 

There  had  been  a  fall  of  snow  during  Monday,  the  5th, 
but  as  night  approached  the  sky  was  clear,  and  the  moon  in 
its  first  quarter 4  shed  a  white  sheen  upon  the  frosted  streets 
and  house-tops.  Many  people  were  abroad  in  clusters,  as 
though  expecting  some  event.  As  darkness  came  on,  "  par- 
ties of  soldiers  were  driving  about  the  streets,"  5  an  unusual 
thing  at  that  hour ;  they  should  have  been  confined  to  their 
barracks.  Some  of  them,  as  they  hurried  along,  struck  the 
inhabitants  indiscriminately  with  their  sheathed  cutlasses  and 

1  Affidavit  of  John  Gray  (No.  9). 

2  Affidavit  of  Daniel  Calfe  (No.  40). 

8   Samuel  Adams's  writings  as  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  during 
the  winter  of  1771. 
*    R.  T.  Paine  at  the  trial  of  the  soldiers. 
6  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  271. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  311 

sticks,  and  seemed  anxious  to  provoke  an  affray.1  A  num- 
ber of  them  came  out  of  Boylston's  Alley  into  the  street, 
rushing  with  uplifted  weapons  upon  unoffending  people ; 
others  hastened  through  King  Street  and  Cornhill  towards 
Murray's  Barracks,  with  drawn  swords  and  cutlasses,  making 
at  spectators  at  their  doorways,  shouting  and  ready  for  a 
conflict,  abusing  the  citizens,  and  threatening  their  lives. 
//  Persons  walking  the  streets  were  attacked,  and  affrays  en- 
sued. 2  The  loud  defiance  and  furious  behavior  of  the  sol- 
diers, which  was  like  that  of  madmen,  caused  some  boys  to 
ring  the  bell  quickly  at  the  head  of  King  Street.  The  people 
thus  alarmed,  gathered  with  clubs  and  sticks,  shouting, 
"  Town-born,  turn  out ! "  Ensign  Mall,  at  the  gate  of  the 
barrack-yard,  urged  the  soldiers  forward.  "  Turn  out,"  he 
cried,  "  I  will  stand  by  you ;  kill  them ;  stick  them ;  knock 
them  down  ;  run  your  bayonets  through  them  !  "  3 —  "  Damn 
your  blood,"  said  a  soldier  to  a  knot  of  citizens  near  the  bar- 
rack-gate, "  I  will  walk  a  lane  through  you  all "  ;  and  kneel- 
ing on  one  knee,  with  his  musket  ready,  he  was  only  prevent- 
ed from  firing  by  a  lieutenant,  who  interfered,  and  pushed 
him  towards  the  barracks.4  "  Where  are  the  damned  cow- 
ards ?  Where  are  your  Liberty  boys  ?  "  was  the  cry,  as  a 
gang  of  thirteen  or  fourteen  soldiers  appeared  in  King 
Street,  near  the  watch-house.5  Another  party  of  five  passed 
on,  cursing  and  shouting,  "  Where  are  they  ?  cut  them  to 
pieces !  "6 

"  The  soldiers  are  in  Cornhill  and  Dock  Square,  with  their 
drawn  cutlasses,  cutting  and  slashing  everybody  in  their 
way,"  said  one  in  distress;  "the  inhabitants  want  help; 
pray,  gentlemen,  run !  " 7  —  "Do  you  intend  to  murder  peo- 
ple ?  "  asked  a  man  from  on  board  a  vessel  in  the  town 

1  Bancroft,  VI.  337.  a  Several  affidavits  in  the  Short  Narrative. 

8  James  Kirkwood's  affidavit  (No  36). 

4  Dr.  Hiron's  testimony  at  the  trial. 

6  William  Le  Baron's  affidavit  (No  26),  and  "William  Tyler  (No.  24). 

8  Nathaniel  Thayer's  affidavit  (No.  28). 

T  John  Coburn's  affidavit  (No.  33). 


312  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

dock.  "  Yes,  by  God,  root  and  branch,"  replied  a  soldier, 
and  followed  up  the  threat  with  a  blow  from  his  club.1 
A  barber's  apprentice,  from  among  the  crowd  of  boys  in 
King  Street,  observing  Captain  Goldfinch  crossing,  called 
out,  "  There  goes  a  mean  fellow,  who  has  not  paid  my  mas- 
ter for  dressing  his  hair  last  night ! "  2  Upon  this,  the  sentry 
left  his  post  at  the  custom-house,  and  followed  the  lad  into 
the  street,  saying,  "  Show  your  face."  "  I  am  not  ashamed 
to  show  my  face  to  any  man,"  he  answered  ;  when  the  sol- 
dier gave  him  a  sweeping  stroke  on  the  head  with  his  mus- 
ket, making  him  reel,  stagger,  and  cry.  3 

In  Dock  Square,  "  a  tall  gentleman  in  a  large  white  wig 
and  red  cloak  "  appeared,  and,  standing  in  the  midst  of  the 
people,  spoke  to  them  briefly,  so  that  "  they  were  whist  for 
some  time."4  It  has  never  been  ascertained  who  he  was, 
nor  did  those  who  listened  to  his  speech  ever  give  any  clew 
afterwards  to  its  purport.//  The  loyalists  subsequently  en- 
deavored to  show  that  his  remarks  and  actions  were  of  an 
incendiary  character  ;  and  Judge  Oliver  in  his  charge  to  the 
jury,  at  the  trial,  made  "  the  tall  man  with  the  red  cloak  and 
white  wig  "  the  special  subject  of  his  animadversion.  If  the 
people  knew  him,  their  secret  died  with  them.  The  Tories 
generally  believed  it  to  have  been  Samuel  Adams  ;  and  one 
of  their  writers,  in  a  controversy  with  him  during  the  trial, 
pointedly  threatens  to  bring  out  facts  to  prove  who  the  per- 
son was,  if  he  desired  it  ;5  which  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  reply  as 
"  Vindex,"  invites  him  to  do,  because  it  had  been  injuriously 
asserted  that,  owing  to  the  peculiarity  of  his  dress,  he  must 
have  been  one  "  holding  office  in  the  town."  The  red  cloak 
was  frequently  worn  at  this  time  by  gentlemen  of  the  Prov- 
ince ;  and  Copley's  painting  of  Adams,  taken  soon  after  this 

1    Samuel  Atwood's  affidavit  (No.  35). 
3  Evidence  in  Preston's  Trial. 
8  Bartholomew  Broaders's  affidavit  (No.  38). 

*   Evidence  at  the  trial,  quoted  by  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec. 
24,  1770. 

6  "  Philanthrop,"  in  the  Evening  Post,  December,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  313 

time,  represents  him  in  red  clothing;  but  Samuel  Adams 
was  not  a  tall  man,  but  of  about  medium  stature.  Hancock 
and  he  were  both  then  "  in  office,"  as  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature, and  Hancock  was  the  taller  of  the  two.  One  of  the 
lieutenants  of  the  Fourteenth,  in  conversation  with  Joseph 
Allen,  pointed  to  Molineux  as  the  real  author  of  the  troub- 
les, but  gave  no  reason  for  the  opinion.  Mr.  Adams  says,  in 
reply  to  a  loyalist  writer  on  the  subject,  "  As  it  is  not  known 
what  the  tall  gentleman  with  the  red  cloak  said  to  the  people, 
whether  he  gave  them  good  or  ill  advice,  or  any  advice  at 
all,  we  may  probably  form  some  conjecture  concerning  it 
when  his  person  is  ascertained."  The  writer  leaves  no 
chance  to  fix  the  identity  upon  himself  or  others.  Whoever  // 
he  was,  the  influence  of  this  mysterious  personage  was  ex- 
erted to  disperse  the  people  and  restore  peace,  and  not  to 
excite  the  populace  as  has  been  represented.  None  of  the 
crown  witnesses  were  able  to  give  the  slightest  hint  as  to  the 
tenor  of  his  remarks,  except  that  they  were  followed  by  a 
space  of  quiet.  There  is  testimony  to  prove  that  a  promi- 
nent citizen  urged  the  officers  to  order  their  soldiers  into  the 
barracks,  and  upon  their  promise  to  do  so,  the  same  person 
advised  the  people  to  disperse,  upon  which  the  cry  of 
"  Home !  home  ! "  was  raised ;  but  others  shouted,  "  Hurrah 
for  the  main  guard !  there  is  the  nest !  "  and  some  started 
in  that  direction  at  the  head  of  King  Street. 1 

A  sentinel  was  stationed  at  the  door  of  the  custom-house, 
situated  at  what  is  now  the  corner  of  State  and  Exchange 
Streets.  A  party  of  mischievous  boys  gathered  round,  and 
pelted  him  with  snowballs,  and  pushed  each  other  towards 
him,  fully  believing  that  he  would  not  dare  to  fire  without 
the  civil  authority.  Even  while  he  loaded  and  primed  his 
musket,  and  knocked  the  breech  upon  the  stone  steps  to 
settle  the  charge,  they  shouted,  "  Fire,  and  be  damned ! " 
"  The  lobster  dare  not  fire !  "  laughing,  huzzaing,  and  pip- 
ing the  boatswain's  whistle  through  their  fingers.     "  If  you 

1  Testimony  of  Dr.  Hiron  at  the  trial.    Richard  Palmes's  affidavit  (No.  53). 


314  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

come  near  me,"  said  he,  "I  will  blow  your  brains  out; 
stand  off "; 1  and  he  called  for  the  main  guard  to  turn  out, 
while  a  servant  ran  to  the  guard-house  near  by,  and  said, 
"  They  are  killing  the  sentinel,  turn  out  the  guard." 

Preston,  who  was  captain  of  the  day,  at  once  detached 
seven  or  eight  men  of  the  Twenty-ninth  Regiment,  headed  by 
a  corporal,  and  followed  himself  with  a  drawn  sword.  They 
went  down  upon  the  run,  swinging  their  guns  and  rushing 
through  the  people  with  fixed  bayonets,  pushing  to  and  fro, 
cursing  and  shouting,  "  Make  way,  damn  you,  make  way." 
As  the  people  stood  aside  to  let  them  pass,  Fosdick  remained 
and  faced  them.  "  Damn  you,  stand  out  of  the  way,"  said 
the  soldiers.  "  I  will  move  for  no  man  under  heaven,"  was 
the  sturdy  response  ;  "  I  have  offended  no  one."  And  they 
passed  by  him,  and,  arriving  at  the  sentry-box,  formed  in  a 
semicircle  around  it.2  As  they  hurried  on,  a  gentleman 
who  knew  Preston  said,  "  For  God's  sake,  keep  your  men  in 
order,  and  mind  what  you  are  about."  3  The  Captain,  with- 
out replying,  commanded  his  men  to  prime  and  load,  and, 
afterwards  going  before  them,  put  up  their  levelled  pieces  to 
an  upright  posture.4  Not  more  than  two  hundred  persons 
were  in  the  street  as  the  soldiers  charged  by ;  and,  at  their 
appearance,  this  number  had  so  far  dispersed  that  not  more 
than  fifty  or  sixty  remained  in  King  Street,  some  standing 
on  the  door-sills  of  the  opposite  houses. 

"  I  took  Captain  Preston  by  the  coat,"  are  the  words  of 
Henry  Knox  in  his  affidavit,  "  and  told  him  for  God's  sake 
to  take  his  men  back  again ;  for  if  they  fired,  his  life  must 
answer  for  the  consequence.  He  replied  he  was  sensible 
of  it,  or  knew  what  he  was  about,  or  words  to  that  purpose, 
and  seemed  in  great  haste  and  much  agitated." 5    Richard 

i  Affidavits  of  William  Tant  (No.  45),  Thomas  Cain  (No.  46),  Daniel 
Usher  (No.  71),  Joshua  Simpson  (No.  65). 

*  Nathaniel  Fosdick's  affidavit  (No.  51). 

*  William  Wyat's  affidavit  (No.  54). 

*  Peter  Cunningham's  affidavit  (No.  47). 
6  Affidavit  of  Henry  Knox  (No.  55). 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  315 

Palmes,  seeing  the  muskets  breast  high,  with  bayonets  fixed, 
approached  Preston,  and  asked  him  if  they  were  loaded.  His 
answer  was  that  they  were,  with  powder  and  ball.  "  I  hope," 
continued  Palmes,  "  you  do  not  intend  to  fire  on  the  inhab- 
itants. "     "  By  no  means,"  replied  Preston. * 

After  the  arrival  of  the  troops  at  the  sentry-box,  the  peo- 
ple had  remained  quiet  until  they  saw  the  loading  of  the 
muskets,  when  a  number  of  them,  mostly  boys,  gave  three 
cheers,  and  calling  the  soldiers  "  cowardly  rascals "  for 
"  bringing  arms  against  naked  men,"  passed  along  in  front, 
some  of  them  striking  the  muskets  as  they  went  by,  and  dar- 
ing the  soldiers  as  "  bloody  backs  "  and  "  lobster  scoundrels  " 
to  fire.  "  Lay  aside  your  guns,  and  we  are  ready  for  you  ; 
fire  if  you  dare  !  "  "  You  dare  not  fire  !  "  2  The  boys 
laughed,  shouted,  whistled,  and  hurrahed,  and  a  few  snow- 
balls were  thrown  at  the  soldiers.  Among  these  were  Mont- 
gomery and  Kilroy,  who  had  been  of  the  party  beaten  by  the 
ropewalk-hands  on  the  previous  Friday.  A  stick  was  thrown, 
striking  the  gun  of  the  former,  when  the  order  to  present 
was  given,  and  Simpson,  who  knew  what  the  next  word  was 
likely  to  be,  stooped  low  to  avoid  the  discharge.  Then  a 
voice,  believed  by  some  to  be  Preston's,  though  the  fact  was 
never  proved,  cried,  "  Fire ! "  3  and,  stepping  aside,  Mont- 
gomery discharged  his  gun,  and  shot  Attacks,  a  negro,  who 
had  until  recently  been  a  slave  in  an  interior  town,  and  was 
particularly  noisy  during  the  evening.  The  order  to  fire 
was  repeated  in  a  loud  voice,  "  Damn  your  blood,  fire ! 
be  the  consequence  what  it  will."  4  A  shot  from  Kilroy 
quickly  succeeded,  though  Langford,  the  watchman,  who 
looked  him  full  in  the  face,  besought  him  to  hold.  The  sol- 
dier pointed  his  piece,  and  fired  directly  for  the  head  of 
Samuel  Gray,  who  was  passing  towards  where  Attucks  had 
fallen ;  and  Gray,  after  struggling,  turned  round  upon  his 

1  Richard  Palmes's  affidavit  (No.  53).  2  Preston's  Case. 

8  Josiah  Simpson's  affidavit  No.  (65). 
*  William  Wyat's  affidavit  (No.  54). 


316  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

heel  and  fell  dead.1  The  remainder  of  the  squad  fired  in 
succession  upon  the  people,  —  one  aiming  at  a  boy,  who  was 
running  for  safety.2  In  all,  three  persons  were  killed,  and 
eight  wounded ;  and  of  the  eleven,  but  one  had  taken  any 
part  in  the  disturbance. 

"I  hear,"  wrote  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  "  of  but  one  of  the  dead 
or  wounded  who  attacked  or  insulted  the  soldiers.  The  rest  seem 
to  be  innocent  passengers  or  spectators.  It  *s  a  great  wonder  many 
more  were  not  killed."  8 

The  soldiers  immediately  reloaded  their  muskets,  and 
now,  infuriated  with  the  sight  of  blood,  were  preparing  to 
fire  again,  when  checked  by  their  commanding  officer.4  The 
Twenty-ninth  Regiment  marched  into  King  Street,  and 
formed  in  three  divisions,  —  the  front  one  as  for  platoon 
firing.5  Soldiers  of  the  Fourteenth  at  Green's  Barracks,  on 
hearing  the  firing,  gave  three  cheers,  and  ran  with  their 
muskets  to  King  Street,  some  of  them  saying,  "  This  is  all 
that  we  want," 6  "  This  is  our  time."  "  Dogs  were  never  so 
greedy  for  their  prey."7  "  I  wish,"  said  the  surgeon  of  the 
Fourteenth,  "  that,  instead  of  five  or  six,  they  had  killed  five 
hundred."8  "Damn  you,"  said  one  of  the  soldiers,  "I 
would  kill  a  thousand  of  them."  The  snow  lay  nearly  a 
foot  deep,9  and  was  "crimson"  with  the  blood  of  the  slain. 
Several  ran  forward  to  the  assistance  of  the  wounded ;  and, 
as  they  stooped  to  remove  them,  the  troops  prepared  to  fire 
again,  but  were  restrained.10 

Instantly  the  alarm  was  sounded.    The  town  drums  beat, 

1  Charles  Hobby  (No.  44). 

2  Ebenezer  Bridgman's  testimony  at  the  trial. 

8  Hutchinson  to  some  person  unknown,  March,  1770. 

4  Preston's  Case.  5  Richard  Palmes  (No.  53). 

8  Affidavit  of  Mary  Gardner  (No.  86). 

7  William  Fallass  (No.  85).  s         •  Ephraim  Penno  (No.  91). 

9  Dimond  Morton  (No.  62),  and  John  Wilson  (No.  66). 

10  Affidavit   of  Samuel  Condon    (No.  48) ;   Benjamin  Burdick  (No.  43) ; 
Thomas  Cain  (No.  46)      Bancroft,  VI.  340. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  317 

and  the  bells  in  the  churches  were  rung.  "  The  soldiers  are 
rising !  to  arms  !  to  arms  !  "  was  the  cry.  "  Turn  out  with 
your  guns,"  "  Town-born,  turn  out  I"  —  "  Language,"  said 
Warren,  two  years  later,  as  he  described  the  scene,  "  is  too 
feeble  to  paint  the  emotion  of  our  souls  when  our  streets 
were  stained  with  the  blood  of  our  brethren,  —  when  our 
ears  were  wounded  with  the  groans  of  the  dying,  and  our 
eyes  were  tormented  with  the  sight  of  the  mangled  bodies  of 

the  dead Our  hearts  beat  to  arms ;  we  snatched  our 

weapons,  almost  resolved  by  one  decisive  stroke  to  avenge  the 
deaths  of  our  slaughtered  brethren."  * 

Upon  the  fearful  clangor  of  bells  and  drums  the  popula- 
tion rushed  forth,  and  the  usual  stillness  of  the  night  was 
converted  into  a  tumultuous  confusion  as  they  pressed  to- 
wards the  scene  of  slaughter.  Artisans  from  the  ship-yards, 
shopmen,  ropewalk-hands,  gentlemen,  sailors,  men  of  all 
classes  and  avocations,  goaded  to  madness,  ran  through  the 
snow-clogged,  frozen  streets,  ready  for  the  conflict.  But  the 
character  of  Boston  vindicated  itself  even  in  that  awful  hour. 
"  Propitious  Heaven,"  continues  Warren,  "  forbade  the  bloody 
carnage."  Patriots  stood  firm  and  self-possessed,  and  still 
turned  for  justice  to  the  law  before  adopting  sterner  meas- 
ures. The  Lieutenant-Governor  was  called,  and  repairing 
to  the  Council  Chamber,  from  the  balcony  he  desired  the 
surging  throng  to  hear  him  speak.  He  requested  them  to 
disperse,  promising  to  inquire  into  the  affair  in  the  morn- 
ing ;  that  "  the  law  should  take  its  course  "  ;  that  he  would 
"live  and  die  by  the  law."  He  was  requested  to  order 
the  troops  to  their  barracks.  "It  is  not  in  my  power,"  an- 
swered Hutchinson ;  "  I  have  no  command  over  the  troops. 
It  is  with  Colonel  Dalrymple,  and  not  with  me."  A  gentle- 
man asked  him  to  look  out  of  the  window  facing  the  main 
guard,  to  see  the  position  of  the  soldiers,  who  were  drawn 
up,  apparently  ready  to  fire  again  on  the  people.     "  After  a 

1  Warren's  Oration,  delivered  March  5  th,  1772,  to  commemorate  the  bloody 
tragedy  of  the  5th  of  March,  1770. 


318  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

good  deal  of  persuasion,"  his  Honor  did  so,  and  then  desired 
Colonel  Carr  to  send  the  troops  to  their  barracks  in  the  same 
order  they  were  then  in;  and  soon  after,  they  shouldered 
arms,  and  were  marched  to  the  guard-room  and  barracks.1 
Pacified  for  the  time  by  the  confinement  of  the  soldiers,  and 
the  assurances  of  Hutchinson  that  instant  inquiries  should 
be  made  by  the  county  magistrate,  the  body  of  the  people 
retired,  leaving  about  a  hundred  to  keep  watch  on  the  exam- 
ination, which  proceeded  until  three  o'clock  on  the  following 
morning.  A  warrant  was  issued  for  the  arrest  of  Preston, 
and  the  soldiers  concerned  in  the  firing  were  committed  to 
prison.2 

1  Richard  Palmes's  affidavit.  *  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  273. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

The  Town  and  County  Authorities  apply  to  Hutchinson  for  the  Removal  of  the 
Troops.  —  They  are  unsuccessful.  —  Town  Meeting  at  Faneuil  Hall.  —  A 
Committee,  headed  by  Adams,  appear  before  Hutchinson  and  the  Council,  and 
renew  the  Demand.  —  Hutchinson  desires  to  parley,  and  makes  an  Evasive 
Reply. — Adams  reports  to  the  People  at  the  Old  South,  who  intrust  him 
with  the  Final  Issue.  —  Memorable  Scene  in  the  Council  Chamber.  —  Ad- 
ams overawes  the  Governor,  and  the  Troops  are  sent  to  the  Castle.  — "  Sam 
Adams's  Regiments." —  Trial  of  the  Soldiers.  —  Adams  causes  John  Adams 
and  Quincy  to  be  retained  as  their  Counsel,  and  Paine  to  conduct  the  Pros- 
ecution. —  Controversy  between  "  Vindex  "  and  "  Philanthrop." 

The  selectmen  and  the  justices  of  the  county  waited  upon 
Hutchinson  early  the  next  morning  at  the  Council  Chamber, 
where  they  assured  him  that  nothing  would  satisfy  them  but 
positive  orders  that  the  troops  should  be  removed  from  the 
town.  Hutchinson  repeated  his  words  of  the  night  before, 
that  the  power  to  remove  the  troops  did  not  rest  with  him, 
but  that  he  would  send  for  Colonels  Dalrymple  and  Carr, 
and  advise  with  them  in  Council.*  The  people  meantime 
had  assembled  at  eleven  o'clock  at  Faneuil  Hall,  and  de- 
spatched a  messenger  to  the  Council  Chamber,  desiring  the 
attendance  of  the  selectmen,  who  were  still  awaiting  an  an- 
swer from  the  Lieutenant-Governor.  On  their  arrival,  the 
meeting  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cooper, 
who  had  been  specially  sent  for,  when  Samuel  Adams  ad- 
dressed the  assembly  with  a  nervous,  impressive  energy,  pe- 
culiar to  himself,  f  A  committee  of  fifteen  was  appointed  to 
inform  his  Honor,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  of  the  unani- 
mous opinion  of  the  meeting,  that  the  inhabitants  and  sol- 
diery could  no  longer  dwell  together  in  safety,  and  that 
blood  and  carnage  could  be  prevented  only  by  their  instant 

*  Massachusetts  Gazette,  March  8, 1770. 

t  Sketch  of  Samuel  Adams,  by  his  grandson,  S.  A.  Wells,  in  the  Biogra- 
phy of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.     1829. 


320  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

removal.*  Headed  by  Samuel  Adams,  the  committee  pro- 
ceeded to  the  Council  Chamber,  and  laid  the  demand  before 
his  Honor,  to  whose  desire  for  a  parley  they  replied  briefly 
that  the  people  not  only  of  Boston,  but  of  all  the  country 
round,  were  determined  the  troops  should  be  removed. 
Hutchinson  reminded  them  that  an  attack  on  the  King's 
troops  was  treason,  and  involved  a  forfeiture  of  the  lives  and 
estates  of  all  concerned.  The  committee,  who  had  not 
come  for  words,  merely  reiterated  their  demand,  and  with- 
drew into  another  room,  awaiting  an  answer.f  Hutchinson, 
after  some  discussion  with  the  Council  and  Dalrymple,  re- 
plied that  he  regretted  the  "  unhappy  differences  "  which  had 
arisen,  but  that  as  the  commanding  officers  of  the  troops  re- 
ceived their  orders  from  the  General  at  New  York,  it  was 
not  in  his  power  to  countermand  those  orders.  The  Twenty- 
ninth  Regiment,  which  had  been  particularly  concerned  in 
the  late  differences,  Dalrymple  had  signified  to  him  should 
be  placed  without  delay  in  the  Castle,  until  orders  could  be 
received  from  the  General  for  both  regiments.  The  com- 
manding officer  had  also  promised  that  the  main  guard 
should  be  removed,  and  the  Fourteenth  Regiment  be  placed 
under  restraint .$ 

At  three  o'clock  the  people  convened  to  hear  the  report 
of  the  committee ;  but  as  Faneuil  Hall  would  not  contain  the 
throng  which  had  been  pouring  into  town  all  day  across  the 
Neck,  they  adjourned  to  the  Old  South  Meeting-house.  An 
anxious  multitude  filled  the  street  between  the  State  House 
and  the  church.  Then  the  committee,  led  by  Samuel  Ad- 
ams, his  head  bared  in  reverence  to  the  occasion,  and  his 
gray  locks  flowing  in  the  wind,  issued  from  the  Council 
Chamber.§     "  Make  way  for  the  committee,"  was  the  cry, 

*  Boston  Town  Eecords,  March,  1770. 
t  Bancroft,  VI.  342.     Hutchinson,  III.  274. 

X  Reply  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  the  Committee  (Boston  Town  Rec- 
ords, March  6,  1770). 
§  Bancroft,  VI.  343. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  321 

as  the  masses  parted  on  either  side  to  give  them  room. 
None  bnt  the  committee  knew  the  purport  of  the  answer, 
and  on  that  answer  none  doubted  that  the  issue  of  peace  or 
bloody  strife  was  suspended.  The  public  indignation  was 
ready  to  burst  forth  in  one  wild  tumult  of  revenge  for  long- 
suffered  injuries, —  a  revenge  which  the  soldiers  and  citizens 
alike  knew  was  in  the  power  of  the  populous  and  determined 
Province.  On  reaching  the  church,  the  committee  were 
ushered  into  the  presence  of  a  densely-packed  audience,  fill- 
ing the  body  of  the  edifice,  and  crowding  into  all  the  galler- 
ies ;  and  to  that  eager  assemblage  Adams  read  the  response 
of  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  which  had  been  delivered  to 
him  in  writing.  This  he  pronounced  insufficient.  A  mo- 
ment of  silence  ensued,  and  then  the  question  was  put  by 
the  chairman  whether  the  answer  was  satisfactory,  and  a 
unanimous  "  No  "  was  thundered  forth  from  three  thousand 
mouths,  with  an  emphasis  that  must  have  made  the  rafters 
of  "  Dr.  Sewall/s  meeting-house  "  tremble  with  the  pealing 
enunciation.  One  voice  only  responded  "  Ay ! "  and  the 
circumstance  was  recorded  by  the  town  clerk,  that  there 
was  "  one  dissentient"  *  A  new  committee  was  immediately 
raised,  of  which  Samuel  Adams  was  the  prolocutor,  to  make 
the  final  demand  for  the  total  evacuation  of  the  town  by 
the  troops.  The  committee  again  repaired  to  the  Coun- 
cil Chamber,  where  Hutchinson  and  the  Council,  the  two 
Lieutenant-Colonels,  and  the  commander  of  the  "Rose" 
war-ship,  then  on  the  station,  were  assembled  awaiting  the 
result. 

It  was  now  late  in  the  afternoon,  and  at  that  season  dark- 
ness was  at  hand.  The  Council  Chamber  presented  a  mem- 
orable scene,  such  as  that  generation  of  Americans  had 
never  witnessed.  "  The  great  town  of  Boston,"  as  the  cap- 
ital of  New  England  had  been  called  by  geographers,  was 
then  the  centre  of  population  and  wealth  in  that  part  of 
the  continent,  and  all  the  formality  and  majesty  of  govern- 

*  Boston  Town  Records,  March  6,  1770. 
vol.  I.  21 


322  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

ment  was  there  exhibited.  The  full  pageant  of  the  royal 
authority,  civic  and  military,  was  now  displayed,  rendered 
the  more  impressive  by  the  declining  light  of  a  winter's  day, 
dimly  struggling  through  the  ancient  windows. 

John  Adams,  who  was  not  present  at  this  interview,  thus 
refers  to  the  Council  Chamber,  as  it  suggested  itself  to  him 
after  forty-seven  years  had  elapsed :  — 

"  Now  for  the  picture.  The  theatre  and  the  scenery  are  the  same 
with  those  at  the  discussion  of  the  "Writs  of  Assistance.  The  same 
glorious  portraits  of  King  Charles  the  Second,  and  King  James  the 
Second,  to  which  might  be  added,  and  should  be  added,  little  miser- 
able likenesses  of  Governor  Winthrop,  Governor  Bradstreet,  Gov- 
ernor Endicott,  and  Governor  Belcher,  hung  up  in  obscure  corners 
of  the  room.  Lieutenant-Governor  Hutchinson,  Commander-in- 
Chief  in  the  absence  of  the  Governor,  must  be  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  Council-table.  Lieutenant- Colonel  Dalrymple,  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  his  Majesty's  military  forces,  taking  rank  of  all  his  Ma- 
jesty's Councillors,  must  be  seated  by  the  side  of  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Province.  Eight-and- 
twenty  councillors  must  be  painted,  all  seated  at  the  Council-board. 
Let  me  see,  —  what  costume  ?  What  was  the  fashion  of  that  day 
in  the  month  of  March  ?  Large  white  wigs,  English  scarlet-cloth 
coats,  some  of  them  with  gold-laced  hats ;  not  on  their  heads  indeed 
in  so  august  a  presence,  but  on  the  table  before  them  or  under  the 
table  beneath  them.  Before  these  illustrious  personages  appeared 
Samuel  Adams,  a  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and 
their  clerk,  now  at  the  head  of  the  committee  of  the  great  assembly 
at  the  Old  South  Church."  * 

Such  is  the  grouping  for  a  national  painting,  as  suggested 
by  the  venerable  ex-President  in  April,  1817. 

Samuel  Adams,  as  chairman  of  the  committee.,  addressed 
himself  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  in  the  name  of  the  town, 
—  his  voice  rising  in  clear  and  audible  tones.  John  Adams 
says, "  He  represented  the  state  of  the  town  and  the  country, 
the  dangerous,  ruinous,  and  fatal  effects  of  standing  armies 

*  John  Adams  to  William  Tudor  (Works,  X.  249). 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  323 

in  populous  cities  in  time  of  peace,  and  the  determined 
resolution  of  the  public  that  the  regular  troops,  at  all 
events,  should  be  removed  from  the  town."  Gordon,  de- 
scribing the  scene,  says  that  Adams  continued  talking  in 
such  a  resolute  tone  and  with  such  strong  implications  as 
to  communicate  his  own  nervous  trembling  to  Colonel  Dal- 
rymple.*  "It  is  the  unanimous  opinion  of  the  meeting," 
said  Adams,  "  that  the  reply  to  the  vote  of  the  inhabitants 
in  the  morning  is  by  no  means  satisfactory ;  nothing  less 
will  satisfy  them  than  a  total  and  immediate  removal  of  the 
troops."  Hutchinson  had  already  intimated  that  one  regi- 
ment, the  Twenty-ninth,  should  be  removed.  He  now  re- 
plied, repeating  his  former  statement :  "  The  troops  are  not 
subject  to  my  authority  ;  I  have  no  power  to  remove  them." 
The  mighty  spirit  of  the  Revolution  then  arose  to  the  coun-' 
tenance  of  the  "  great  incendiary."  Drawing  himself  up  to 
his  full  height,  determination,  as  often  in  times  of  public 
exigency,  flashing  from  his  clear  blue  eye,  he  stretched  forth 
his  arm,  "  which  slightly  shook  with  the  energy  of  his  soul," 
and,  gazing  steadfastly  upon  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  re- 
plied :  "  If  you  have  the  power  to  remove  one  regiment,  you 
have  power  to  remove  both.  It  is  at  your  peril  if  you  refuse. 
The  meeting  is  composed  of  three  thousand  people.  They 
are  become  impatient.  A  thousand  men  are  already  arrived 
from  the  neighborhood,  and  the  whole  country  is  in  motion. 
Night  is  approaching.  An  immediate  answer  is  expected. 
Both  regiments  or  none !  "f  Hutchinson  saw  that  a  crisis 
had  arrived  which  no  subterfuge  could  evade.  The  issue  was 
fairly  presented,  and  a  direct  answer  demanded.  The  irres- 
olute Chief-Magistrate,  surrounded  by  the  insignia  of  power, 
was  no  match  for  the  iron  man  of  the  people  who  confronted 

*  History,  I.  328. 

t  Bancroft,  VI.  344.  Andrew  Oliver's  Deposition.  Life  of  Elbridge  Gerry, 
I.  360.  Boston  Patriot  for  July  26,  1826.  Manuscript  Sketch  of  Samuel 
Adams  by  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Hannah  Wells,  1804.  Hutchinson  to  Bernard, 
March  18,  1770.  Barry's  History  of  Massachusetts,  II.  417.  John  Adams  to 
William  Tudor  and  Jedediah  Morse. 


324  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

him.  He  quailed  before  the  greatness,  the  majesty,  of  patri- 
otism. Adams  never  despised  him  more  than  at  that  mo- 
ment. 

"  You  compare  him,"  said  he,  not  long  afterwards,  to  his  friend 
James  Warren,  "to  Julius  Caesar,  that  public  executioner  of  his 
country's  rights.  He  has,  it  is  true,  Caesar's  ambition  and  lust  of 
power;  but  who  ever  yet  suspected  that  he  had  Caesar's  courage? 
Eecollect  the  time  when  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  the  troops  by 
which  he  had  hoped  to  awe  the  people.  It  was  then,  if  fancy  de- 
ceived me  not,  I  observed  his  knees  to  tremble.  I  thought  I  saw 
his  face  grow  pale  (and  I  enjoyed  the  sight)  at  the  appearance  of 
the  determined  citizens  peremptorily  demanding  the  redress  of 
grievances."  * 

The  whole  assemblage  of  royalty,  in  fact,  stood  abashed 
before  the  patriot.  The  Lieutenant-Governor  now  applied 
to  his  Council  for  advice.  "  They  are  not,"  responded  Ty- 
ler, "  such  a  people  as  formerly  pulled  down  your  house, 
who  conduct  the  present  measures.  No ;  they  are  people 
of  the  best  characters  among  us,  men  of  estates,  men  of 
religion.  They  have  formed  their  plan  for  removing  the 
troops  out  of  town ;  and  it  is  impossible  they  should  remain 
in  it.  The  people  will  come  in  from  the  neighboring  towns ; 
there  will  be  ten  thousand  men  to  effect  the  removal  of  the 
troops,  be  the  consequence  what  it  may."-f  Dalrymple, 
who  stood  near,  repeated  the  assurance  that  it  was  "  impos- 
sible to  go  any  further  lengths  in  this  matter."  Gray  and 
Irving,  of  the  Council,  recommended  the  removal ;  and  the 
word  was  at  last  given.  $ 

The  committee,  having  received  the  decision  of  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, returned  to  the  meeting,  bearing  the 
promise  of  Colonel  Dalrymple,  "  that  he  would  begin  the 
preparation  in  the  morning,  and  that  there  should  be  no 
unnecessary  delay  until  the  whole  of  the  two  regiments  were 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  James  Warren,  March  25,  1771. 
t  Gordon's  History,  I.  288,  289. 
X  Bancroft,  VI.  345,  346. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  325 

removed  to  the  Castle."  *  The  report  being  read,  "  the  in- 
habitants," so  say  the  records,  "  could  not  but  express  the 
high  satisfaction  which  it  afforded  them,"  —  which,  we  may 
presume,  means  that  they  burst  into  a  storm  of  joyous  ap- 
plause. 

It  was  then  resolved  to  establish  a  strong  night-watch 
"  for  the  protection  of  the  town  ";  and  the  committee,  who 
had  just  returned  from  the  interview  at  the  Council  Cham- 
ber, having  offered  their  services  for  that  night,  they  were 
authorized  to  detail  such  of  the  people  as  they  should  think 
proper,  and  also  to  appoint  the  watches  for  the  ensuing 
nights.  Besides  Adams,  this  committee  consisted  of  John 
Hancock,  William  Molineux,  William  Phillips,  Dr.  Joseph 
Warren,  Joshua  Henshaw,  and  Samuel  Pemberton.  Hav- 
ing agreed  upon  a  place  of  rendezvous,  in  case  of  any  dis- 
turbance in  the  night,  and  taking  some  account  of  how  the 
town's  people  were  armed,  the  meeting  adjourned.f 

The  effect  of  this  victory  of  a  plain  democratic  committee, 
asserting  their  rights  before  the  representative  of  majesty, 
encouraged  the  spirit  of  freedom,  by  showing  that  deter- 
mination and  persistency  of  purpose  could  accomplish  im- 
portant results.  That  a  repeated  refusal  to  remove  the 
troops  would  have  produced  bloodshed,  and  perhaps  have 
hastened  the  separation  from  Great  Britain,  must  be  in- 
ferred from  the  spirit  manifested  by  the  populace.  Warren, 
a  few  years  later,  asserted  that  "  It  was  Royal  George's 
livery  alone  that  saved  the  soldiers  from  annihilation ;  and 
calm  reason  dictated  a  method  of  removing  the  troops  more 
mild  than  an  immediate  recourse  to  the  sword." 

"  I  have  the  strongest  reason  to  believe,"  he  continues, "  that  I 
have  mentioned  the  only  circumstance  which  saved  the  troops  from 
destruction.  It  was  then,  and  now  is,  the  opinion  of  those  who  were 
best  acquainted  with  the  state  of  affairs  at  that  time,  that,  had  thrice 
that  number  of  troops  belonging  to  any  power  at  open  war  with  us 

*  Boston  Town  Records.  t  Idem. 


326  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

been  in  this  town  in  the  same  exposed  condition,  scarce  a  man  would 
have  lived  to  have  seen  the  morning  light/'  * 

"  If  the  troops  had  not  been  removed, "  wrote  Hutchinson 
soon  after  these  events,  "  we  should  have  been  to  this  time  in 
a  perfect  convulsion,  unless  they  had  been  overpowered  and 
destroyed."  f  "  A  gentleman  of  the  Council  told  me,"  said 
a  correspondent  of  Hutchinson's,  "  that  he  had  no  doubt  that 
ten  thousand  men  would  have  marched  from  this  Province 
(New  Hampshire)  to  Boston,  had  there  been  occasion."  $ 
The  account  that  Lord  North  received  of  the  scene  in  the 
Council  Room  impressed  him  so,  that  he  always  afterwards 
referred  to  the  troops  then  in  Boston  as  "Sam  Adams's 
Regiments" 

The  Governor's  apprehensions  of  violence  were  this  time 
well  founded.  The  language  and  bearing  of  Samuel  Adams 
in  the  Council  Chamber  had  penetrated  deep  into  the  mind 
of  Hutchinson.  "  It  was  a  strong  expression,"  he  says,  "  of 
that  determined  spirit  which  animated  all  future  meas- 
ures." That  determined  spirit,  as  manifested  in  Adams, 
meant  American  Independence,  which  had  become  a  fixed 
idea  in  his  mind,  since  the  commencement  of  military  rule. 
It  was  still  his  policy  to  express  in  all  his  writings  a  hope 
of  conciliation,  but  final  separation  was  now  the  moving 
spring  of  his  actions,  and  he  made  advances  towards  that 
point  with  a  resolute  purpose  and  unalterable  will,  guarded 
always  by  the  sagacity  and  caution  which  tempered  every 
movement.  The  ball  had  been  in  motion  since  the  summer 
ot  1768.  Every  step  taken  from  that  time  was  so  much 
space  lessened  between  the  idea  and  its  accomplishment. 
His  every  act  thenceforth,  properly  studied,  reveals  the  all- 
absorbing  purpose.  Prudence,  indeed,  demanded  a  keen 
inspection  of  the  approaches  to  the  great  goal,  a  thorough 
knowledge  and  schooling  of  the  popular  mind,  patience  to 

*  Warren's  Oration,  March  5,  1772. 

t  Hutchinson  to  some  person  unknown,  March,  1770. 

%  Nathaniel  Rogers,  in  Portsmouth,  to  Hutchinson,  March  12,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  327 

await  the  bringing  up  of  less  ardent  temperaments,  firmness 
to  restrain  the  rash,  fortitude  to  abide  the  issue,  genius  to 
invent  and  control  great  measures,  which  should  gradually 
produce  the  coveted  result.  But  through  all  he  never 
doubted  the  ability  of  the  country  to  conquer  in  the  end. 
Repeatedly,  between  1768  and  1775,  he  refers  to  the  future 
in  a  manner  showing  that,  should  events  precipitate  the 
crisis,  he  considered  the  country  able  to  meet  it. 

The  week  was  occupied  in  the  transportation  of  the  troops 
and  their  equipages  ;  and  meantime,  the  town,  not  satisfied 
with  their  tardy  action,  appointed  the  former  committee  to 
inquire  explicitly  when  the  removal  would  be  completely 
effected ;  to  which  Dalrymple  replied,  "  That  no  man  of  the 
Twenty-ninth  Regiment  was  now  in  town,  and  that  between 
Thursday  night  and  Friday  m6rning  not  one  of  the  Four- 
teenth, except  himself,  should  remain."*  The  night-watch 
continued  in  organization,  under  the  town's  committee,  until 
every  soldier  had  left  for  Castle  William.  "  The  whole  mi- 
litia of  the  city,"  says  John  Adams,  "  was  in  requisition,  and 
military  watches  and  guards  were  everywhere  placed.  We 
were  all  upon  a  level ;  no  man  was  exempted ;  our  military 
officers  were  our  superiors.  I  had  the  honor  to  be  sum- 
moned in  my  turn,  and  attended  at  the  State-House  with 
my  musket  and  bayonet,  my  broadsword  and  cartridge-box, 
under  the  command  of  the  famous  Paddock. "f 

Before  the  departure  of  the  troops,  the  funeral  of  the  slain 
took  place ;  and  as  this  was  during  the  continuance  of  the 
public  watch  kept  by  the  citizens,  the  latest  sentiment  of  the 
soldiers  was  one  of  rage  and  humiliation.  The  assemblage 
was  the  largest  that  had  ever  been  known.  The  bells  of 
Boston  and  the  neighboring  towns  were  tolled,  and  many 
of  the  shops  were  shut.  The  four  hearses,  arriving  from 
different  localities,  formed  a  junction  in  King  Street,  upon 
the  spot  where  the  tragedy  occurred,  whence  the  procession 

*  Boston  Town  Kecords,  March  12,  1770. 
t  John  Adams's  Works,  X.  251. 


328  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

marched  six  deep  through  the  main  street  to  the  middle  bur- 
ial-ground, where  the  bodies  were  deposited  in  one  grave.* 

Knowing  that  false  accounts  would  reach  England,  the 
town  appointed  a  committee,  consisting  of  James  Bowdoin, 
Joseph  Warren,  and  Samuel  Pemberton,  to  prepare  a  narra- 
tive of  the  Massacre,  which  was  sent  to  the  principal  friends 
of  America ;  while  the  committee  who  had  appeared  before 
Hutchinson  in  the  Council  Chamber  addressed  Thomas 
Pownall  in  London,  through  the  pen  of  Mr.  Adams,  briefly 
detailing  the  circumstances  of  the  affair,  and  desiring  him  to 
prevent  any  ill  impressions  upon  the  minds  of  the  Ministry, 
until  the  full  narrative  could  be  forwarded  by  the  next  con- 
veyance.! The  affidavits  accompanying  the  narrative  were 
taken  openly  before  two  justices  of  the  peace,  and  in  the 
presence  of  men  representing  all  parties.  Colonel  Dalrymple 
was  duly  notified  to  attend  the  captions,  and  no  unbiassed 
person  questioned  the  fairness  of  the  proceeding.  A  num- 
ber of  ex  parte  affidavits,  taken  in  secret  and  sent  to  Eng- 
land to  give  a  different  coloring  to  the  circumstances,  and  a 
grossly  false  statement,  called  "  The  Case  of  Captain  Thomas 
Preston,"  attempted  to  prejudice  the  government  still  fur- 
ther against  the  town ;  but  the  falsity  of  these  representa- 
tions were  afterwards  shown  by  Mr.  Adams  in  his  corre- 
spondence with  Dr.  Franklin,  and  even  Preston  himself 
admitted  that  his  statement  had  been  at  different  times 
altered  after  it  left  his  hands. 

The  opposition  to  the  soldiery  had  thus  far  been  confined 
strictly  to  legal  measures  on  the  part  of  the  town.  Even  the 
shedding  of  innocent  blood  had  resulted  in  no  retaliation, 
save  the  peremptory  demand  for  the  removal  of  the  troops, 
which  the  royal  authorities  had  not  dared  to  refuse.  But 
the  town  determined  that  the  supremacy  of  the  law  should 
still  further  be  maintained.  It  was  resolved  to  bring  the 
soldiers  to  trial;  and,  at  the  urgent  solicitation  of  Samuel 

*  Boston  newspapers,  March  12  and  15, 1770. 
t  "Narrative  of  the  Boston  Massacre,  p.  7. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  329 

Adams  and  his  associates,  John  Adams  and  Josiah  Quincy 
consented  to  become  the  counsel  for  the  prisoners.*  The 
task,  which  was  a  severe  ordeal  for  such  men  in  such  times, 
required  great  self-sacrifice  and  a  degree  of  magnanimity 
on  the  part  of  these  patriotic  lawyers  which  cannot  be  ap- 
preciated at  this  distant  day.  The  consent  of  Quincy  was 
obtained  "  in  Mr.  Adams's  house,  where  an  interview  was 
had  for  the  purpose."  Samuel  Adams  was  particularly  de- 
sirous that  the  town  should  be  absolved  from  any  charge  of 
unfairness,  and  that  every  opportunity  of  defence  should  be 
furnished  to  the  accused.  In  John  Adams  and  Quincy  he 
knew  that  the  best  legal  ability  would  be  theirs,  and  that 
whatever  might  be  the  event,  the  world  should  bear  witness 
to  the  general  desire  for  strict  justice  and  the  integrity  of 
American  juries,  which  had  been  questioned.  That  perfect 
impartiality  might  be  maintained,  he  states  that  the  town  at 
its  annual  meeting,  shortly  after  the  Massacre,  voted  to  re- 
strain their  committee  from  publishing  the  official  narrative 
in  Boston,  lest  it  should  unduly  prejudice  those  who  might 
become  jurors  on  the  trial,  until  the  trial  should  be  over,  — 
a  restraint  which  they  continued  at  their  meeting  in  May.f 
It  was  published,  however,  against  the  wishes  of  Mr.  Adams, 
who  desired  that  it  should  first  see  the  light  in  England ; 
and  the  Legislature  made  an  appropriation  to  enable  the 
town  to  charter  a  vessel  for  the  express  purpose  of  convey- 
ing it  thither.  In  the  absence  of  the  King's  attorney,  it 
was  necessary  to  obtain  some  eminent  lawyer  to  conduct  the 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  350. 

t  Samuel  Adams,  as  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  31,  1770.  Yet 
Hutchinson,  in  a  letter  probably  to  Bernard,  accuses  the  town  of  "  carrying  on 
the  prosecution  of  poor  Preston  and  his  soldiers  with  inimitable  thirst  for 
their  blood  "  ;  and  relates  how  Samuel  Adams  at  the  head  of  a  committee,  and 
followed  by  a  vast  concourse  of  people,  appeared  before  the  Judges  of  the  Supe- 
rior Court,  and  harangued  them  (the  Judges)  until  they  altered  their  deter- 
mination of  putting  off  the  trial.  The  town  was  resolved  that  the  trial  should 
proceed  in  regular  course  ;  but  that  they  thirsted  after  the  blood  of  the  prison- 
ers is  sufficiently  disproved  by  the  action  above  stated,  as  well  as  by  the  fact 
that  the  most  eminent  legal  counsel  was  engaged  for  them. 


J 


330  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

prosecution,  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  Samuel  Ad- 
ams *  the  services  of  Robert  Treat  Paine  were  secured,  — 
the  exertions  of  Adams  being  directed  to  arraying  on  both 
sides  the  chief  talent  of  the  Province  in  a  case  involving  the 
character  of  his  native  town.  The  trial,  which  he  attended 
day  by  day,  taking  notes  of  all  the  proceedings,  was  held  in 
October  and  November  before  the  Superior  Court,  and  re- 
sulted in  the  acquittal  of  Preston,  who  had  every  indulgence 
shown  him  by  the  citizens,  and  who  probably  did  not  order 
the  troops  to  fire.  The  soldiers  were  ably  defended  by  their 
two  distinguished  advocates.  Six  were  brought  in  "not 
guilty "  ;  and  two,  Montgomery  and  Kilroy,  were  found 
guilty  of  manslaughter ;  but  praying  the  "  benefit  of  clergy," 
they  were  branded  in  the  hand  in  open  court,  and  dis- 
charged. 

During  the  trial,  for  reasons  already  given,  Mr.  Adams 
refrained  from  writing  upon  the  subject ;  but,  immediately 
after,  he  commenced  a  series  of  reviews  of  the  testimony, 
ably  and  clearly  analyzing  it,  and  drawing  upon  his  own 
notes  for  facts.  They  extended  through  December,  1770, 
and  January,  1771.  Most  of  them,  are  very  lengthy,  and 
some  occupy  nearly  all  the  available  space  of  the  Boston 
Gazette.  Using  the  signature  of  "  Vindex,"  f  he  shows  the 
evident  falsity  of  much  of  the  testimony  in  favor  of  the  sol- 
diers, and  the  certain  design  on  their  part  to  bring  the  ill 
feeling  between  themselves  and  the  people  to  a  bloody  issue 
at  the  first  opportunity.  A  crown  writer  in  the  Evening 
Post,  as  "  Philanthrop,"  attempted  to  measure  swords  with 

*  Sketch  of  R.  T.  Paine  in  Biography  of  the  Signers. 

t  That  the  facts  in  the  case  might  become  generally  known  among  the 
friends  of  America  in  England,  Mr.  Adams  enclosed  these  essays  to  his  corre- 
spondents there,  —  to  Stephen  Sayre  among  others  (see  Adams  to  Sayre, 
Jan.  12,  1771).  What  Hutchinson  thought  of  the  writer  is  shown  in  his  letter 
to  Mr.  Whately  in  London,  Jan.  25,  1771.  When  the  proofs  were  sent  to 
Mr.  Adams  from  the  printers,  the  original  generally  accompanied  them, 
which  accounts  for  several  of  his  "  Vindex"  manuscripts  being  found  among 
the  Adams  papers. 


t 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  331 

him ;  but  the  contest,  if  such  the  unequal  match  could  be 
called,  was  of  short  duration.  In  one  of  these  articles,  after 
critically  reviewing  the  statements  of  certain  witnesses,  he 
turns  to  the  reasoning  of  his  antagonist  in  the  loyalist  paper, 
where  the  writer  had  published  a  lengthened  argument  in 
favor  of  the  measures  of  government,  warning  his  readers 
not  to  be  duped  "  by  an  artful  use  of  the  words  *  liberty '  and 
'  slavery '  in  an  application  to  their  passions,' '  and  that  the 
true  patriot  would  be  "  very  cautious  of  charging  want  of 
ability  or  integrity  to  those  with  whom  any  of  the  powers  of 
government  are  entrusted."  The  idea  of  peaceful  acquies- 
cence in  any  arbitrary  illegal  act  of  government  was  abhor- 
rent to  the  mind  of  Samuel  Adams.  True  democratic  feel- 
ing was  a  part  of  his  very  existence.  Rulers,  he  held,  are 
but  the  servants  of  the  people,  whose  delegated  power  ought 
to  be  exercised  only  while  it  was  not  prostituted.  Taking 
issue  with  "  Philanthrop,"  who  urged  passive  obedience,  Mr. 
Adams  says :  — 

"But  the  true  patriot  will  constantly  be  jealous  of  those  very 
men,  knowing  that  power,  especially  in  times  of  corruption,  makes 
men  wanton,  that  it  intoxicates  the  mind;  and  unless  those  with 
whom  it  is  entrusted  are  carefully  watched,  —  such  is  the  weakness 
or  perverseness  of  human  nature,  —  they  will  be  apt  to  domineer 
over  the  people,  instead  of  governing  them  according  to  the  known 
laws  of  the  state,  to  which  alone  they  have  submitted.  If  he  finds, 
upon  the  best  inquiry,  the  want  of  ability  or  integrity,  that  is,  an  ig- 
norance of,  or  a  disposition  to  depart  from,  the  Constitution,  which  is 
the  measure  and  rule  of  government  and  submission,  he  will  point 
them  out  and  loudly  proclaim  them.  He  will  stir  up  the  people  in- 
cessantly to  complain  of  such  men,  till  they  are  either  reformed  or 
removed  from  the  sacred  trust,  which  it  is  dangerous  for  them  any 
longer  to  hold.  *  Philanthrop '  may  tell  us  of  the  hazard  of  <  disturb- 
ing and  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  multitude,  whose  passions  know 
no  bounds.'  A  traitor  to  the  Constitution  alone  can  dread  this. 
The  multitude  I  am  speaking  of  is  the  body  of  the  people  — » no  con- 
temptible multitude,  —  for  whose  sake  government  is  instituted,  or 
rather  who  have  themselves  erected  it,  solely  for  their  own  good,  — 


332  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

to  whom  even  kings,  and  all  in  subordination  to  them,  are,  strictly 
speaking,  servants  and  not  masters. 

"  *  Philanthrop,'  I  think,  speaks  somewhat  unintelligibly  when  he 
tells  us  that  the  well-being  and  happiness  of  the  whole  depends  up- 
on subordination,  —  as  if  mankind  submitted  to  government  for  the 
sake  of  being  subordinate.  tIn  the  state  of  nature  there  was  subor- 
dination. The  weaker  was  by  force  made  to  bow  down  to  the  more 
powerful.  This  is  still  the  unhappy  lot  of  a  great  part  of  the  world 
under  government.  So  among  the  brutal  herd  the  strongest  horns 
are  the  strongest  laws.  Mankind  have  entered  into  political  socie- 
ties rather  for  the  sake  of  restoring  equality,  the  want  of  which  in 
the  state  of  nature  rendered  existence  uncomfortable  and  even  dan- 
gerous. I  am  not  of  levelling  principles ;  but  I  am  apt  to  think  that 
constitution  of  civil  government  which  admits  equality  in  the  most 
extensive  degree  consistent  with  the  true  design  of  government  is 
the  best ;  and  I  am  of  this  opinion,  because  I  believe,  with  '  Philan- 
throp '  and  many  others,  that  man  is  a  social  animal.  Subordination 
is  necessary  to  promote  the  purposes  of  government,  the  grand  de- 
sign of  which  is  that  men  might  enjoy  a  greater  share  of  the  bless- 
ings resulting  from  that  social  nature  and  those  rational  powers 
with  which  indulgent  Heaven  has  endowed  us  than  they  could  in  a 
state  of  nature.  But  there  is  a  degree  of  subordination  which  will 
be  forever  abhorrent  to  the  generous  mind,  when  it  is  extended  to 
the  very  borders,  if  not  within  the  bounds  of  slavery,  —  a  subordina- 
tion which  is  so  far  from  conducing  '  to  the  welfare  and  happiness 
of  the  whole,'  that  it  necessarily  involves  the  idea  of  that  worst  of 
all  the  evils  of  this  life,  a  tyranny,  —  an  abject  servility,  which  in- 
stead of '  being  essential  to  our  existence  as  a  people/  disgraces  the 
human  nature,  and  sinks  it  to  that  of  the  most  despicable  brute."  * 

On  the  very  day  of  the  Massacre,  the  "  American  ques- 
tion "  was  brought  up  in  Parliament  for  debate,  when  Lord 
North  asked  leave  to  bring  a  bill  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, in  conformity  with  the  promise  in  Lord  Hillsborough's 
circular,  repealing  the  duties  upon  glass,  paper,  and  paint- 
ers' colors,  but  retaining  the  duty  of  three  per  cent  upon 

*  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  21,  1771. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  333 

tea.  The  alarming  state  of  trade  and  the  decline  of  com- 
merce was  the  subject  of  a  petition  from  the  mercantile 
classes,  which  difficulties  were  held  to  be  based  upon  the  ob- 
noxious American  duties.  The  Premier,  while  he  depreca- 
ted the  behavior  of  the  Americans,  expressed  his  determina- 
tion "  to  compel  observance  of  the  laws  and  to  vindicate 
the  rights  of  Parliament."  A  splendid  galaxy  of  talent 
argued  in  favor  of  America.  Pownall  supported  the  petition 
of  the  merchants  and  traders,  but  desired  to  have  the  article 
of  tea  included  in  the  repeal  of  the  enumerated  articles; 
and  was  followed  in  the  same  strain  by  Conway,  Barre*,  and 
Sir  William  Meredith.  Besides  these,  Sir  George  Saville, 
"  the  spotless,"  Dowdeswell,  Dunning,  Trecothick,  Bedford, 
and  Beauchamp,  all  argued  for  the  entire  repeal  of  the  du- 
ties ;  but  though  strongly  opposed  in  both  Houses,  the  bill 
was  carried  by  large  majorities,  and  on  the  12th  of  April  re- 
ceived the  royal  assent.  Thus  the  original  principle,  from 
which  had  grown  all  the  trouble  between  the  two  countries, 
was  affirmed,  and  the  barrier  to  reconcilation  made  higher 
and  stronger. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Legislature  meets  at  Harvard  College.  —  Controversy  with  the  Lieuten 
ant-Governor.  —  Josiah  Quincy. —  His  Character  and  Talents. — Drafts 
the  General  Instructions  to  the  Boston  Eepresentatives.  —  Hancock  pettishly 
determines  to  resign  his  Seat  in  the  Assembly.  —  Adams  dissuades  him.  — 
Exertions  of  Adams  to  bring  forward  promising  Young  Men  in  the  Public 
Cause.  —  Quincy's  Admiration  and  Respect  for  him.  —  Failure  of  the  Non- 
importation Agreement.  —  Letter  of  Adams  to  Franklin  on  Colonial  Affairs. 
■*■*■  His  Remarkable  Reply  to  the  Speech  of  Hutchinson,  who  writes  to  England 
accusing  him  of  Treason.  —  Castle  William  taken  from  the  Keeping  of  the 
Provincial  Authorities.  —  Adams  publicly  denounces  the  Act. 

The  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  had  now  been  sus- 
pended since  July  of  the  preceding  year.  The  Lieutenant- 
Governor  had  received  orders  from  the  Ministry,  leaving  it 
discretionary  with  him  whether  to  convene  the  Court  at 
Boston  or  Cambridge;  but  he  fixed  upon  the  latter  place, 
although  he  knew  from  experience  that  the  leading  members ' 
would  be  opposed  to  it,  and  a  needless  controversy  ensue. 
They  met  on  the  15th  in  the  Chapel  of  the  College,  and 
thence  repaired  to  the  "  Philosophy  Room,"  where  Hutchin- 
son awaited  them,  and  delivered  his  speech.  With  his  usual 
duplicity,  he  stated  that  he  had  received  such  instructions, 
by  the  last  two  packets  from  England,  as  made  it  necessary 
to  meet  the  Assembly  at  Cambridge.  A  committee,  headed 
by  the  Speaker,  but  of  which  Samuel  Adams  was  the  osten- 
sible chairman,  immediately  drew  up  a  remonstrance  against 
the  injustice,  inconvenience,  and  unconstitutionality  of  hold- 
ing the  Assembly  in  Harvard  College.  The  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  in  reply,  still  pleaded  instructions,  and  stood  upon 
his  reserved  rights  as  Commander-in-Chief ;  whereupon  the 
Council  joined  the  House  in  its  remonstrance.  But,  though 
the  controversy  lasted  several  days,  it  was  to  no  purpose ; 
and   the    Legislature    continued    to   meet    at   Cambridge. 


March,  1770.] 


LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  335 


Hutchinson  had  thoughts  of  holding  the  session  at  Salem. 
"  The  further  from  Boston,"  said  he,  "  the  better." 

"The  House,"  he  continued,  "will  be  sour  and  troublesome 
enough ;  but  all  they  can  do  will  be  a  .perfect  trifle  compared  with 

the  trouble   the   town  of  Boston   gives  me I  would  give 

up  all  if  the  town  could  be  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  Prov- 
ince. I  do  not  see  how  that  can  be  done ;  but  something  may  and 
must  be  done  to  humble  the  leaders  of  the  people  of  the  town,  and 
so  keep  the  inhabitants  in  order.  I  have  tried  the  Council,  and  rep- 
resented to  the  Judges  the  illegality  of  the  town  acts ;  but  they  say 
there  is  no  possibility  of  helping  it.  The  body  of  the  people  are  all 
of  a  mind,  and  there  is  no  stemming  the  torrent.  It  is  the  common 
language  of  Adams  and  the  rest  that  they  are  not  to  be  intimidated 
by  acts  of  Parliament,  for  they  will  not  be  executed  here;  and 
should  there  be  an  act  of  Parliament  to  vacate  the  charter,  as  the 
lawyer  told  the  Judge  of  the  Superior  Court,  the  people  would  not 
submit  to  it.  I  do  not  see  what  should  prevent  the  new  councillors 
from  being  as  obnoxious  as  the  Commissioners.  We  are  most  cer- 
tainly every  day  confirming  ourselves  in  our  principles  of  independ- 
ence;  and  tells  me  he  is  fully  convinced  that  nothing  but 

sharp  external  force  will  bring  Boston  into  a  state  of  due  subordi- 
nation  I  am  sure  you  will  not  suffer  what  I  write  to  come 

back  again,  even  by  rumors."  * 

Most  of  the  papers  during  this  session  were  written  by 
Samuel  Adams.  Fragments  of  some  of  them,  evidently 
original  drafts,  are  extant  in  his  handwriting,  and  the  style 
and  language  are  unmistakably  his.  He  was  also  the 
working  member  of  nearly  all  the  committees,  though  the 
name  of  Cushing  (Speaker  of  the  House)  was  usually  placed 
first,  as  Bradford  says,  "  was  then  the  usage,"  making  that 
officer  the  "  nominal  chairman."  Adams  was,  as  heretofore, 
the  leader,  and  conducted  the  Legislature  in  the  most  impor- 
tant of  its  measures.  He  was  seconded  by  Major  Hawley 
and  probably  two  or  three  others,  whose  names  appear  on 
committees,  —  among  them,  Leonard,  Sheafe,  and  Bowers. 

*  To  a  friend  in  London,  March,  1770. 


336  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

The  answer  of  the  House  to  one  of  the  messages  of  the  Gov- 
ernor, relating  to  a  trivial  disturbance  that  had  occurred  at 
Gloucester,  is  conceived  in  tones  unusually  bold.  It  reviews 
the  condition  of  the  Province,  inveighs  against  the  grievance 
of  a  military  force  posted  among  the  people,  and  refers 
pointedly  to  the  singular  neglect  by  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor to  allude  to  the  late  Massacre  in  his  message  at  the 
opening  of  the  session.  Eegarding  public  disturbances  it 
continues :  — 

"  It  may  justly  be  said  of  the  people  of  this  Province,  that  they 
seldom,  if  ever,  have  assembled  in  a  tumultuous  manner,  unless  they 
have  been  oppressed.  It  cannot  be  expected  that  a  people  accus- 
tomed to  the  freedom  of  the  English  Constitution  will  be  patient 
while  they  are  under  the  hand  of  tyranny  and  arbitrary  power.  They 
will  discover  their  resentment  in  a  manner  which  will  naturally  dis- 
please their  oppressors ;  and  in  such  a  case,  the  severest  laws  and 
the  most  rigorous  execution  will  be  to  little  or  no  purpose.  The 
most  effectual  method  to  restore  tranquillity  would  be  to  remove 
their  burdens,  and  to  punish  all  those  who  have  been  the  procurers 
of  their  oppression." 

After  expressing  the  hope  that  the  military  would  be 
removed  from  the  Province,  until  which  tyranny  and  confu- 
sion would  prevail,  the  injustice  of  removing  the  Assembly 
—  "  driven  from  its  ancient  and  legal  seat "  —  to  Cambridge 
is  represented,  and  it  concludes' as  follows :  — 

"These  alarming  considerations  have  awakened  and  fixed  our 
attention ;  and  your  Honor  cannot  think  we  can  very  particularly 
attend  to  things  of  lesser  moment  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
executive  courts,  at  a  time  when,  in  faithfulness  to  our  constituents, 
our  minds  are  necessarily  employed  in  matters  which  concern  the 
very  being  of  the  Constitution."  * 

During  a  part  of  this  session,  Cushing  was  incapacitated 
by  illness  from  filling  his  position,  and  Hancock  was  elected 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  April  23,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  337 

Speaker  pro  tern.  Hutchinson  rejected  him,  when  Colonel 
Warren  was  chosen  and  accepted.  About  the  same  time  the 
sum  of  ninety  pounds  was  voted  to  Samuel  Adams  "  for  his 
services  as  Clerk  of  this  House  during  the  several  sessions 
of  the  General  Court  during  the  current  year."  * 

The  House,  in  their  remonstrance,  having  resolved  that 
their  determination  to  proceed  to  business  was  by  no  means 
to  be  considered  thereafter  as  a  renunciation  of  their  claim 
to  the  legal  right  of  sitting  in  General  Assembly  at  the 
Court  House  in  Boston,  and  the  elections  drawing  near, 
Hutchinson  dissolved  the  Assembly  on  the  26th  of  April. 
At  the  same  time  he  observed  that  some  parts  of  their  remon- 
strance extended  to  the  authority  of  the  King  and  Parlia- 
ment, and  that  he  should  lay  it  before  his  Majesty.  "I 
shall  do  it,"  he  adds,  "without  any  comment;  it  needs 
none."  f 

But  the  House  had  no  reason  to  doubt  the  justness  of 
their  proceedings;  and  Hutchinson,  in  convening  them  at 
Cambridge,  had  not  only  violated  their  charter  rights,  but 
had  made  the  discretionary  letter  from  the  Ministry,  the  lan- 
guage of  which  he  kept  secret,  an  excuse  for  the  gratification 
of  his  personal  resentment.  In  that  arbitrary  and  needless 
act  he  had  willingly  followed  the  advice  of  Bernard,  who 
continued  his  interference  in  the  affairs  of  the  Province,  his 
course  in  Massachusetts  having  been  fully  approved  by  the 
Royal  Council.  Hutchinson  artfully  pretended  to  be  led  by 
him,  hoping  thereby  to  reach  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  —  the 
office  of  Governor. 

"The  Court,"  he  wrote,  "has  been  sitting  at  Cambridge  ever 
since  the  15th,  refusing  to  do  any  business,  and  urges  me  to  remove 
them  to  Boston,  but  I  shall  not  do  it.  I  hope  no  copy  of  my  Lord 
Hillsborough's  letter  to  me  of  the  9th  of  December  will  be  suffered 
to  be  made  public,  nor  of  mine  to  his  Lordship  in  answer;  for  I 

*  Journal,  April  17-20, 1770. 

t  Message  to  the  House,  April  26,  1770.     Hutchinson's  History,  III.  508. 
vol.  i.  22 


838  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April,  S£ay, 

have  followed  your  advice,  and  they  do  not  know  that  I  had  any 
sort  of  discretion  left  in  the  matter."  # 

On  the  26th  of  April  the  news  of  the  Boston  Massacre  ar- 
rived in  England,  and  renewed  efforts  were  made  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  behalf  of  America.  Even  Grenville 
redeemed  his  former  course  by  speaking  against  the  action 
of  soldiers  in  violation  of  the  civil  authority.  The  debate 
extended  into  May,  when  Burke  and  Wedderburne  attacked 
the  administration.  But  resolutions  of  censure  were  defeat- 
ed by  immense  majorities,  and  the  policy  of  the  King  and 
Lord  North  was  sustained. 

In  Boston  the  annual  May  elections  came  round ;  and  on 
the  8th,  out  of  five  hundred  and  thirteen  votes  polled  for 
Representatives,  Adams  and  Cushing  had  all  but  three,  Han- 
cock all  but  two,  and  Bowdoin,  who  was  now  for  the  first 
time  a  candidate  for  the  House  in  place  of  Otis,  lacked  sev- 
enty-four.f  The  four  members  elect  received  on  the  15th 
the  town's  instructions  from  the  pen  of  Josiah  Quincy,  whose 
genius,  young  as  he  was,*  had  already  made  a  conspicuous 
/figure.  Warmly  attached  to  the  cause  of  America,  and 
/  even  now  noted  for  oratorical  and  literary  talents  as  well 
as  legal  attainments,  there  seemed  scarcely  any  honorable 
position  which  he  might  not  have  filled,  had  he  survived 
the  Revolution.  Like  Joseph  Warren,  he  was  the  ardent 
admirer  of  Samuel  Adams,  who  affected  of  all  things  the 
companionship  of  brilliant  young  men,  into  whose  keeping 
he  knew  the  destinies  of  the  country  were  eventually  to  fall. 
When  any  of  them  were  going  abroad,  he  often  gave  them 
letters  of  introduction  to  distinguished  men  with  whom  he 
was  in  correspondence,  and  Quincy  thus  gained  the  society 
of  Dickinson  and  Read  in  Philadelphia  a  few  years  later. 
He  sometimes  revised  the  political  writings  of  Quincy,  whose 

*  Hutchinson  to  some  person  unknown,  March  25, 1770,  copied  in  the  Boston 
Gazette  for  June  5, 1775,  and  in  Almon's  Remembrancer,  for  1775,  2d  ed.,  p. 

181. 

* 

t  Boston  Town  Records,  May,  1770 


1770.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  339 

manuscripts  still  bear  the  inscription,  in  the  autograph  of  the 
author,  directed  to  the  printer,  "  Let  Samuel  Adams,  Esq., 
correct  the  press,"  and  he  was  ever  ready  with  advice  and 
encouragement  to  advance  the  worthy  ambition  of  all,  when 
directed  in  the  path  of  their  country's  welfare.  Those  who 
shared  his  confidence  knew  how  lightly  he  valued  the  breath 
of  applause,  and  how  willing  he  was  to  allow  others  to  ap- 
pear in  his  own  measures  and  actions  ;  looking  himself  only 
to  the  results,  careless  of  any  credit  that  might  be  due  to  the 
conception.  Warren,  Quincy,  Hancock,  Church,  Gerry,  and 
many  others  of  their  age,  regarded  him  as  their  political 
father ;  but  Warren  claimed  his  closest  friendship  and  confi- 
dence. 

The  instructions  were  the  most  spirited  and  eloquent  that 
had  yet  been  produced.  Hutchinson  says,  they  "  not  only 
afforded  a  strong  presage  of  the  measures  of  the  House,  but, 
in  words  more  open  and  express  than  .had  ever  before  been 
ventured  on,  indicated  to  government  in  England  the  design 
of  a  general  revolt,  and  excited,  together  with  the  message 
from  the  House  of  Representatives  at  the  close  of  the  last 
session,  the  first  measures  taken  with  an  apparent  design  to 
guard  against  it.*  In  the  legislative  paper  referred  to,  the 
House  had  presented  a  firm  and  determined,  but  dignified 
review  of  the  public  grievances,  and  had  unsparingly  ex- 
posed the  artfulness  of  Hutchinson.  Quincy 's  instructions 
reflected  the  impetuous  ardor  of  the  young  patriot,  who 
looked  with  impatience  upon  the  wrongs  of  his  oountry ,  and 
could  ill  brook  the  cautious  delay  which  must  precede  suc- 
cess. He  points  out  the  "  unwarranted  and  arbitrary  exac- 
tions, ....  grievances,  and  discontents  which,  convulsing 
every  part  of  the  British  Empire,  forbode  a  day  of  trial  in 
which,  under  God,  nothing  but  stern  virtue  and  inflexible 

fortitude  can  save  us  from  miserable  destruction 

The  dreadful  catastrophe  threatens  universal  havoc,  and 
presents  an  awful  warning  to  hazard  all,  if  peradventure  we, 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  290. 


340  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Alay, 

in  these  distant  confines  of  the  earth,  may  prevent  being  to- 
tally overwhelmed  and  buried  under  the  ruins  of  our  most 
established  rights.  For  many  years  past  we  have  with  sor- 
row beheld  the  approaching  conflict."  The  writer  recom- 
mends resistance,  "  even  unto  the  uttermost "  ;  points  out  to 
the  attention  of  the  representatives  the  several  public  griev- 
ances ;  urges  them  to  arouse  a  military  spirit  in  the  people, 
to  cultivate  a  firm  and  lasting  union  with  the  other  Colonies ; 
and  finally  reminds  them  that  "  the  further  nations  recede 
and  give  way  to  the  gigantic  strides  of  any  powerful  despot, 
the  more  rapidly  will  the  fiend  advance  to  spread  wide  deso- 
lation ;  and  then,  should  no  attempt  be  made  to  stay  his 
ravaging  progress,  *  the  dogs  of  war,  let  loose  and  hot  for 
blood,  rush  on  to  waste  and  havoc. '  "  * 

There  is  perhaps  no  trait  in  the  character  of  Samuel 
Adams  more  pleasing  than  this  thoughtful  care  for  the 
advancement  of  others.  By  this  is  meant,  not  only  the 
general  desire  for  the  happiness  of  his  countrymen,  by  the 
establishment  of  their  liberties,  founded  in  courage  and  vir- 
tue, but  a  whole-souled  interest  in  the  personal  success  of 
those  whose  talents  or  virtues  made  them  worthy  of  his  sym- 
pathies. Towards  young  men,  who  manifested  generosity  of 
sentiment  or  natural  qualities  likely  to  make  them  useful 
in  the  cause  if  properly  developed,  his  great  heart  warmed 
with  a  liberal  and  genuine  affection.  He  lost  no  opportu- 
nity of  bringing  them  out,  and  encouraging  their  love  of 
country  and  readiness  to  sacrifice  all  to  its  salvation.  He 
was  himself  a  continual  illustration  of  his  own  teachings,  — 
regardless  of  wealth  and  personal  honors,  and  setting  an  ex 
ample  of  patriotism,  Spartan  in  its  character  and  ennobling 
to  human  nature.  Among  the  laboring  people  he  was  ever 
a  welcome  guest.  Utterly  devoid  of  aristocratic  tendencies, 
he  could  sympathize  and  associate  with  them,  and  always 
took  the  warmest  interest  in  their  social  affairs.  His 
thoughts  were  with  and  for  "  the  people,"  that  is,  the  middle 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  508-515. 


1770.]  LIFE  op  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  341 

and  lower  classes.  He  personally  instructed  a  poor  boy 
who  was  apprenticed  to  him  as  a  servant,  and  gave  him  a 
place  in  his  own  pew  at  church.  In  his  writings  relative  to 
the  Massacre,  he  shows  himself  to  have  been  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  the  circumstances  of  the  bereaved  families, 
who  were  all  in  the  humblest  walks  of  life.  "  The  ship- 
wrights and  mechanics,"  says  Eliot,  whose  personal  knowl- 
edge of  Samuel  Adams  extended  through  many  years  in 
Boston,  "  were  his  firm  friends  through  all  the  scenes  of  the 
Revolution,  believing  that  to  him,  more  than  to  any  other 
man,  they  owed  their  independence. "  *  Not  only  do  his  con- 
temporaries record  his  influence  in  shaping  the  course  of 
prominent  young  men,  but  his  letters  are  perpetual  proofs 
of  his  genial  interest  in  their  welfare.  Instances  are  too  nu- 
merous for  insertion  here,  even  from  among  such  fragments 
of  his  vast  correspondence  as  have  been  collected.  A  few, 
however,  will  illustrate.  One  is  to  a  young  gentleman  who 
had  set  out  on  his  travels,  and  had  enjoyed  at  home  the 
friendship  of  Mr.  Adams. 

Boston,  Nov.  28,  1770. 
My  dear  Sir, — 

When  you  embarked  for  London  I  promised  you  I  would  write  by 
the  next  ship.  I  did  not  write ;  but  it  was  owing  to  incessant  avo- 
cations at  Cambridge,  and  not  to  an  unmindfulness  of  my  promise,  or 
a  want  of  attention  to  fulfil  it.  I  hope  you  are  safe  arrived ;  you 
are  then  a  sojourner  in  one  of  the  most  opulent  and  most  luxurious 
cities  in  the  world.  Music  is  your  dear  delight ;  f  there  your  taste 
will  be  improved.  But  I  fear  that  discord  will  too  often  discompose 
you,  and  the  rude  clamors  against  your  country  will  vex  you.  I 
rely  upon  it,  that  your  own  good  sense  will  dictate  to  you  that  which 
will  sufficiently  vindicate  your  country  against  foul  aspersion,  when- 
ever you  may  meet  with  it ;  and  I  cannot  entertain  the  least  doubt 
but  you  are  possessed  with  all  that  patriotic  zeal  which  will  forever 

*  Eliot's  N.  E.  Biographical  Dictionary. 

t  It  has  been  stated  by  some  who  knew  Mr.  Adams,  that  he  was  a  great 
lover  of  music,  for  which  he  had  a  cultivated  and  correct  taste.  John  Adams 
(Works,  X.  251)  refers  to  the  "  charming  voice  "  of  his  kinsman. 


342  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

warm  the  breast  of  an  ingenuous  young  gentleman.  Such  a  zeal, 
tempered  with  a  manly  prudence,  will  render  you  reputable  in  po- 
litical circles  of  men  of  sense.  I  am  sure  you  will  never  condescend 
to  be  a  companion  of  fools.  After  telling  you  what  I  know  will  be 
agreeable  to  you,  that  your  friends  are  all  well,  you  must  allow  me 
to  plead  haste,  and  conclude  at  present  with  my  best  wishes  for  your 
prosperity. 

Adieu, 
Mb.  Josiah  Williams.  Sam.  Adams. 

A  special  favorite  with  Mr.  Adams  was  his  nephew,  Mr. 
Joseph  Allen,  who  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  his  house,  and 
used,  in  after  years,  to  remember  the  unwearied  industry 
of  his  uncle  in  maintaining  a  voluminous  private  corre- 
spondence throughout  the  country,  and  with  the  friends  of 
America  in  England.  Mr.  Allen  afterwards  filled  a  number 
of  public  offices,  was  a  clerk  of  the  courts,  a  councillor,  a 
member  of  Congress,  and  twice  one  of  the  Presidential  Elec- 
tors. Born  in  1749,  he  was  now  just  of  age,  and  about 
entering  into  mercantile  business  in  the  town  of  Leicester, 
where  he  received  the  following  letter :  — 

m  ^  November  7,  1771. 

Dear  Kinsman, — 

As  you  are  just  now  setting  out  on  the  journey  of  life,  give  me 
leave  to  express  to  you  my  ardent  wish  that  you  may  meet  with  all 
that  prosperity  which  shall  be  consistent  with  your  reed  happiness. 
I  cannot  but  think  you  have  a  good  prospect ;  yet  your  path  will,  in 
all  probability,  be  uneven.  Sometimes  you  must  expect,  like  all 
other  travellers,  to  meet  with  difficulties  in  the  road.  Let  me  there- 
fore recommend  to  you  the  advice  of  one  of  the  ancients,  a  man  of 
sterling  sense,  though  a  heathen :  "  Aequam  memento  rebus  in  arduis 
servare  mentem."  In  the  busy  scenes  of  life  you  may  now  and  then 
be  disposed  to  drive  on  hard,  and  make  rather  too  much  haste  to  be 
rich.  You  will  then  be  upon  your  guard  against  temptation,  which, 
if  yielded  to,  will  poison  the  streams  of  all  future  comfort.  You 
will  then  in  a  more  particular  manner  impress  upon  your  mind  the 
advice  of  an  inspired  writer,  to  "maintain  a  conscience  void  of 
offence."     I  do  not  flatter  you,  when   I   say,  you   have   hitherto 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  343 

supported  a  good  reputation.     You  will  still  preserve  it  unsullied, 
remembering  that  a  good  name  is  your  life. 

Adieu, 

S.  Adams. 

A  letter  to  John  Hancock  shows  how  delicately  Adams 
was  at  times  obliged  to  handle  his  capricious  friend,  whom 
he  had  himself  first  brought  into  public  life,  and  whose  petu- 
lance occasionally  got  the  better  of  his  natural  generosity. 
A  few  days  after  the  May  election,  Hancock,  offended  by 
some  disparaging  remark  which  had  come  to  his  ears,  re- 
solved to  withdraw  from  the  Boston  delegation  in  the  As- 
sembly. The  announcement  caused  Mr.  Adams  no  little 
anxiety,  for  the  retirement  at  this  crisis  of  so  popular  and 
wealthy  a  member  of  the  liberty  party  could  not  but  injure 
the  cause,  and  give  room  for  exulting  remarks  from  the 
enemies  of  the  country.     He  therefore  writes  him :  — 

Boston,  May  11,  1770. 
Dear  Sir, — 

Your  resolution  yesterday  to  resign  your  seat  gave  me  great 
uneasiness.  I  could  not  think  you  had  sufficient  ground  to  deprive 
the  town  of  one  whom  I  have  a  right  to  say  is  a  most  valuable 
member,  since  you  had  within  three  of  the  unanimous  suffrages  of 
your  fellow-citizens,  and  one  of  the  negative  votes  was  your  own. 
You  say  you  have  been  spoken  ill  of.  What  then  ?  Can  you  think 
that  while  you  are  a  good  man,  that  all  will  speak  well  of  you  ?  If 
you  knew  the  person  who  has  defamed  you,  nothing  is  more  likely 
than  that  you  would  justly  value  yourself  upon  that  man's  censure 
as  being  the  highest  applause.  Those  who  were  fond  of  continuing 
Mr.  Otis  in  that  seat  were,  I  dare  say  to  a  man,  among  your  warm- 
est friends.  Will  you  then  add  to  their  disappointment  by  a  resig- 
nation, merely  because  one  contemptible  person,  who  perhaps  was 
hired  for  the  purpose,  has  blessed  you  with  his  reviling  ?  Need  I 
add  more  than  to  entreat  it  as  a  favor,  that  you  would  alter  your 
design. 

I  am,  with  strict  truth, 

Your  affectionate  friend  and  brother, 

Sam.  Adams. 


344  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May,  June, 

This  note,  to  which  were  probably  added  verbal  persua- 
sions between  that  time  and  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature, 
had  the  desired  result,  and  Hancock  was  sworn  in  with  the 
Boston  delegation.  Had  he  withdrawn,  while  Otis,  a  wreck, 
was  in  the  country,  the  moral  effect  would  have  been  dis- 
heartening. His  reputation  would  have  been  missed, — 
though  not  his  pen;  for  Hancock,  often  as  he  appears  on 
committees,  seldom,  if  ever,  contributed  to  the  preparation 
of  state  papers.  Otis,  though  Adams's  tender  solicitude  for 
him  never  failed,  could  now  only  lend  the  weight  of  his 
name  to  measures  for  the  public  safety. 

On  the  last  Wednesday  in  May  the  General  Court  com- 
menced its  session  at  Cambridge,  when  Adams  and  Cushing 
were,  as  usual,  unanimously  elected  Clerk  and  Speaker.* 
The  controversy  between  the  House  and  the  Governor  on 
the  illegality  of  holding  the  General  Court  out  of  Boston 
was  immediately  recommenced ;  the  House  resolving  that 
they  proceeded  to  the  election  of  councillors  only  from 
necessity,  protesting  against  its  being  drawn  into  a  prece- 
dent at  any  time  thereafter,  or  considered  as  a  voluntary 
receding  from  their  constitutional  claim.  In  their  message 
to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  they  remonstrated  "  against 
holding  the  Assembly  in  any  other  place  than  the  town- 
house  in  Boston."  The  contest  was  stoutly  maintained, 
apparently  exhausting  the  arguments  on  both  sides  ;  Hutch- 
inson (whose  zeal  was  excited  by  the  notice  that  he  was  to 
receive  the  appointment  of  Governor),  citing  authorities, 
and  bringing  to  bear  his  most  potent  reasoning  to  support 
his  position,  and  the  Assembly  meeting  him  at  every  point, 
and  sturdily  refusing  to  proceed  to  business  by  a  vote  of 
ninety-six  to  six.  During  this  session,  Bowdoin  having 
been  elected  to  the  Council,  John  Adams  for  the  first  time 
joined  the  Assembly,  and  was  sworn  in  by  Hancock  and 
Samuel  Adams. f  The  names  of  both  "  the  Adamses  "  occur 
throughout  the  sessions  of  this  year  upon  committees  for  pre- 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  May  30,  1770.  t  June  6,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  345 

paring  answers  and  remonstrances, — the  policy  being  the 
same  as  in  the  former  session.  The  Lieutenant-Governor 
despairing  of  effecting  any  change,  prorogued  the  Court  on 
the  25th  of  June. 

Among  Samuel  Adams's  papers  are  found  detached  por- 
tions of  a  letter  in  his  handwriting  to  Benjamin  Franklin, 
prepared  for  a  committee,  of  which  he  was  one,  appointed 
by  the  town  to  disabuse  the  minds  of  influential  persons  in 
England  of  the  false  statements  sent  on  by  the  crown 
officers  as  to  the  Massacre  and  subsequent  events.  It  is 
dated  in  Boston  on  the  13th  of  July,  and  Franklin  is  urged 
to  exert  himself  and  obtain  a  suspension  of  public  opinion, 
until  the  town  could  have  an  opportunity  of  knowing  what 
was  alleged  against  it  and  of  answering  for  itself.  It  pro- 
tested against  the  determination  of  Parliament  to  admit 
garbled  extracts  from  such  letters  as  were  received  from 
America  by  the  administration  and  to  conceal  the  names  of 
the  writers. 

"How  deplorable,  then,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  "must  be  our  condi- 
tion, if  ample  credit  is  to  be  given  to  their  testimony  against  us  by 
the  government  at  home,  and  if  the  names  of  our  accusers  are  to  be 
kept  a  profound  secret,  and  the  world  is  to  see  only  such  parts  or 
parcels  of  their  representations  as  persons  who  perhaps  may  be 
interested  in  their  favor  shall  think  proper  to  hold  up.  Such  con- 
duct, if  allowed,  seems  to  put  it  in  the  power  of  a  few  designing  men 
to  deceive  a  nation  to  its  ruin.  The  measures  which  have  been 
taken  in  consequence  of  intelligence  managed  with  such  secrecy 
have  already,  to  a  very  great  degree,  lessened  that  mutual  confi- 
dence which  had  ever  subsisted  between  the  mother  country  and 
the  Colonies,  and  must,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  totally  alien- 
ate their  affections  towards  each  other,  and  consequently  weaken, 
and  in  the  end  destroy,  the  power  of  the  empire.  It  is  in  this 
extended  view  of  things  that  our  minds  are  affected.  It  is  from 
these  apprehensions  that  we  earnestly  wish  that  all  communications 
between  the  two  countries  of  a  public  nature  may  be  unveiled 
before  the  public,  with  the  names  of  the  persons  who  are  concerned 
therein.    Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  American  affairs  be  under  the 


346  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

direction  of  honest  men,  who  are  never  ashamed  or  afraid  of  the 
light. 

*  If  this  writer  of  those  letters  shall  appear  to  be  innocent,  no  harm 
can  possibly  arise  from  such  a  measure ;  if  otherwise,  it  may  be  the 
means  of  explaining  the  true  cause  of  the  national  and  Colonial  mal- 
ady, and  of  affording  an  easy  remedy ;  and  therefore*  the  measure 
may  be  justified  and  applauded  by  all  the  world." 

Mr.  Adams  then  takes  up  the  Case  of  Captain  Preston, 
which  had  appeared  in  the  London  papers,  and,  he  asserts, 
is  replete  with  falsehood,  and  could  never  be  "  supported  by 
the  testimony  of  any  man  of  tolerable  reputation.' '  This 
part  of  the  letter,  which  is  very  elaborate,  goes  over  the 
ground  covered  by  "  Vindex  "  in  his  articles  in  the  Boston 
Gazette,  during  the  past  winter,  in  one  of  which  Mr.  Adams 
stated  that  it  had  been  asserted  in  the  London  newspapers 
that  the  people  of  Boston  had  ■  seized  upon  Captain  Preston, 
and  hung  him  like  Porteus  upon  a  sign-post.' ' 

A  more  reasonable  proposal  than  that  of  the  town,  to  have 
the  representations  of  the  loyalists  made  public,  that  they 
might  know  by  whom  and  of  what  they  were  accused,  could 
not  be  imagined.  Its  justice  was  unquestionable ;  yet  the 
letters  were  jealously  kept  secret,  and  the  action  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  based  upon  their  statements. 

The  Legislature,  met  again  at  the  Chapel  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege on  the  25th  of  July,  when  the  Lieutenant-Governor, 
who  had  summoned  them  to  the  Council-Chamber  up  stairs, 
read  a  carefully  prepared  address,  reviewing  the  whole  con- 
troversy relative  to  convening  the  Court  out  of  Boston. 
Flattering  himself  that  they  would  no  longer  insist  upon  the 
illegality  of  his  action,  he  threatened  a  further  prorogation, 
should  they  persist  in  their  refusal  to  proceed  with  the  busi- 
ness of  the  session.*  This,  however,  the  House  had  made 
their  first  duty  on  assembling.  The  next  day,  he  wrote  to 
Lord  Hillsborough :  — 

♦  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  237. 


1770. J  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  34T 

■  I  met  the  Assembly  yesterday  at  Cambridge.  I  shall  enclose 
the  speech  I  made  then.  If  they  will  not  go  to  business,  I  must  pro- 
rogue them  further,  and  give  myself  no  further  concern  about  them. 
Their  constituents  are  the  only  sufferers ;  and  when  they  feel  their 
sufferings  to  a  little  degree  beyond  what  they  do  at  present,  I  think 
they  will,  in  many  towns,  express  their  dissatisfaction  at  the  beha- 
vior of  their  representatives.  In  the  mean  time  I  shall  treat  them 
with  moderation  and  firmness.  I  am  very  sure  if  the  members  of 
Boston  were  out  of  the  House,  I  should  have  a  majority  in  favor  of 
government." 

On  receiving  the  Lieutenant-Governor's  message,  the 
House  appointed  a  committee  to  reply,  and  merely  met  and 
adjourned  each  day,  until  the  30th,  when  the  answer  was 
reported.  It  was  written  by  Samuel  Adams,  as  is  sufficient- 
ly indicated  by  the  style,  which  no  one  acquainted  with  his 
writings  could  mistake ;  moreover,  his  original  rough  draft 
is  still  preserved.  Hutchinson,  who  was  aware  of  the  fact, 
wrote  to  England,  denouncing  him  as  the  author,  and  de- 
scribing the  "  treatise,' '  a  name  he  afterwards  applied  to  it, 
as  "  seditious,"  "  criminal,"  "  daring,"  and  "  hinting  at  a 
revolt."  It  was  indeed  a  bold,  nervous  composition,  wor- 
thy of  the  mind  that  conceived  it.  One  of  the  character- 
istics of  Samuel  Adams's  writings,  and  the  most  interest- 
ing one  after  their  unadorned  simplicity,  is  their  logical 
strength,  and  the  acuteness  which  saw  at  once  the  weak 
side  of  an  argument,  went  directly  to  the  point,  and  ex- 
posed all  fallacies  with  clearness  and  force.  No  sophis- 
try or  art  could  confuse  him  or  lead  him  astray.  He 
looked  intuitively  into  the  designs  of  his  adversaries,  and 
laid  them  open  with  unsparing  hand.  Having  reiterated 
their  former  resolution  not  to  proceed  to  business  while 
the  Court  was  held  "  out  of  the  town  of  Boston,"  the 
House  continue :  — 

"After  the  most  attentive  and  repeated  examination  of  your 
speech,  we  find  nothing  to  induce  us  to  alter  our  opinion,  and  very 
little  that  is  new  and  material  in  the  controversy.     But  as  we  per- 


348  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

ceive  it  is  published,  it  may  possibly  be  read  by  some  who  have 
never  seen  the  reasons  of  the  House ;  and  as  there  are  specious 
things  contained  in  it  which  may  have  a  tendency  to  make  an  un- 
happy impression  on  some  minds,  we  have  thought  proper  to  make 
a  few  observations  upon  it. 

"  You  are  pleased  to  say,  '  you  meet  us  at  Cambridge,  because 
you  have  no  reason  to  think  there  has  been  any  alterations  in  his 
Majesty's  pleasure,  which  you  doubt  not  was  determined  by  wise 
motives,  and  with  a  gracious  purpose  to  promote  the  good  of  the 
Province.'  We  presume  not  to  call  in  question  the  wisdom  of  our 
Sovereign,  or  the  rectitude  of  his  intentions :  but  there  have  been 
times  when  a  corrupt  and  profligate  administration  have  ventured 
upon  such  measures  as  have  had  a  direct  tendency  to  ruin  the  inter- 
est of  the  people,  as  well  as  that  of  their  royal  master. 

"  The  House  have  great  reason  to  doubt  whether  it  is,  or  ever 
was,  his  Majesty's  pleasure  that  your  Honor  should  meet  the  Assem- 
bly at  Cambridge,  or  that  he  has  ever  taken  the  matter  under  his 
royal  consideration  ;  because  the  common  and  the  best  evidence  in 
such  cases  is  not  communicated  to  us. 

"  It  is  needless  for  us  to  add  anything  to  what  has  been  hereto- 
fore said  upon  the  illegality  of  holding  the  Court  anywhere  except 
in  the  town  of  Boston.  For,  admitting  the  power  to  be  in  the  Gov- 
ernor to  hold  the  Court  in  any  other  place  when  the  public  good 
requires  it,  yet  it  by  no  means  follows  that  he  has  a  right  to  call 
it  in  any  other  place  when  it  is  to  the  manifest  injury  and  detri- 
ment of  the  public. 

"  The  opinion  of  the  Attorney  and  Solicitor  General  has  very  little 
weight  with  this  House  in  any  case,  any  further  than  the  reasons 
which  they  expressly  give  are  convincing.  This  Province  has  suf- 
fered so  much  by  unjust,  groundless,  and  illegal  opinions  of  those 
officers  of  the  crown,  that  our  veneration  or  reverence  for  their  opin- 
ions is  much  abated.  "We  utterly  deny  that  the  Attorney  and  Solic- 
itor-General have  any  authority  or  jurisdiction  over  us,  any  right 
to  decide  questions  in  controversy  between  the  several  branches  of 
the  Legislature  here.  Nor  do  we  concede,  that  even  his  Majesty 
in  Council  has  any  constitutional  authority  to  decide  such  questions, 
or  any  other  controversy  whatever,  that  arises  in  this  Province,  ex- 
cepting only  such  matters  as  are  reserved  in  the  charter.     It  seems 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  849 

a  great  absurdity,  that  when  a  dispute  arises  between  the  Governor 
and  the  House,  the  Governor  should  appeal  to  his  Majesty  in  Coun- 
cil to  decide  it.  Would  it  not  be  as  reasonable  for  the  House  to 
appeal  to  the  body  of  their  constituents  to  decide  it  ?  Whenever  a 
dispute  has  arisen  within  the  realm  between  the  Crown  and  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament,  or  either  of  them,  was  it  ever  imagined  that 
the  King  in  his  Privy  Council  had  authority  to  decide  it  ?  How- 
ever, there  is  a  test,  a  standard  common  to  all,  —  we  mean,  the 
public  good.  But  your  Honor  must  be  very  sensible  that  the  ille-  * 
gality  of  holding  the  Court  in  any  other  place,  beside  the  town  of 
Boston,  is  far  from  being  the  only  dispute  between  your  Honor  and 
this  House.  We  contend  that  the  people  and  their  representatives 
have  a  right  to  withstand  the  abusive  exercise  of  a  legal  and  con- 
stitutional prerogative  of  the  Crown.  We  beg  leave  to  recite  to 
your  Honor,  what  the  great  Mr.  Locke  has  advanced  in  his  Treatise 
of  Civil  Government  upon  the  like  prerogative  of  the  Crown.  '  The 
old  question,'  says  he,  *  will  be  asked  in  this  matter  of  prerogative, 
"who  shall  be  judge  when  this  power  is  made  a  right  use  of?"' 
And  he  answers :  '  Between  an  executive  power  in  being  with  such 
a  prerogative  and  a  legislative  that  depends  upon  his  will  for  their 
convening,  there  can  be  no  judge  upon  earth,  as  there  can  be  none 
between  the  legislative  and  the  people,  should  either  the  executive 
or  legislative,  when  they  have  got  the  power  in  their  hands,  design 
or  go  about  to  enslave  or  destroy  them.  The  people  have  no  other 
remedy  in  this,  as  in  all  other  cases  where  they  have  no  judge  on 
earth,  but  to  appeal  to  Heaven.  For  the  rulers,  in  such  attempts, 
exercising  a  power  the  people  never  put  into  their  hands  (who  can 
never  be  supposed  to  consent  that  anybody  should  rule  over  them 
for  their  harm),  do  that  which  they  have  not  a  right  to  do.  And 
when  the  body  of  the  people  or  any  single  man  is  deprived  of  their 
right,  or  under  the  exercise  of  a  power  without  right,  and  have  no 
appeal  on  earth,  then  they  have  a  liberty  to  appeal  to  Heaven  when- 
ever they  judge  the  cause  of  sufficient  moment.  And,  therefore, 
though  the  people  cannot  be  judge,  so  as  to  have,  by  the  constitution 
of  that  society,  any  superior  power  to  determine  and  give  effective 
sentence  in  the  case  ;  yet  they  have,  by  a  law  antecedent  and  par- 
amount to  all  positive  laws  of  men,  reserved  that  ultimate  determi- 
nation to  themselves  which  belongs  to  all  mankind,  where  there  lies 


350  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July,  Aug, 

no  appeal  on  earth,  viz. :  to  judge  whether  they  have  just  cause  to 
make  their  appeal  to  Heaven.'  We  would,  however,  by  no  means, 
be  understood  to  suggest,  that  this  people  have  occasion  at  present 
to  proceed  to  such  extremity. 

"  The  House  are  still  ready  to  answer  for  all  the  ill  consequences 
which  can  be  justly  attributed  to  them  ;  nor  are  they  sensible  of  any 
danger  from  exerting  the  power  which  the  charter  has  given  them, 
of  doing  their  part  of  the  business  in  their  own  time.  That  the 
Province  has  enemies,  who  are  continually  defaming  it  and  their 
charter,  is  certain ;  that  there  are  persons  who  are  endeavoring  to 
intimidate  the  Province  from  asserting  and  vindicating  their  just 
rights  and  liberties,  by  insinuations  of  danger  to  the  Constitution,  is 
also  indisputable.  But  no  instance  happened,  even  in  the  execrable 
reign  of  the  worst  of  the  Stuart  race,  of  a  forfeiture  of  a  charter, 
because  any  one  branch  of  a  legislative,  or  even  because  the  whole 
government  under  that  charter,  refused  to  do  business  at  a  partic- 
ular time  under  grievous  circumstances  of  ignominy,  disgrace,  and 
insult ;  and  when  their  charter  had  explicitly  given  to  that  govern- 
ment the  sole  power  of  judging  of  the  proper  season  and  occasion 
of  doing  business.  We  are  obliged,  at  this  time,  to  struggle  with  all 
the  powers  with  which  the  Constitution  has  furnished  us,  in  defence 
of  our  rights,  to  prevent  the  most  valuable  of  our  liberties  from 
being  wrested  from  us  by  the  subtle  machinations  and  daring  en- 
croachments of  wicked  ministers.  We  have  seen  of  late  innumer- 
able encroachments  on  our  charter :  Courts  of  Admiralty  extended 
from  the  high  seas,  where  by  the  compact  in  the  charter  they  are 
confined,  to  numberless  important  causes  upon  land ;  multitudes  of 
civil  officers,  the  appointment  of  all  which  is  by  charter  confined  to 
the  Governor  and  Council,  sent  here  from  abroad  by  the  Ministry ; 
a  revenue  not  granted  by  us,  but  torn  from  us;  armies  stationed 
here  without  our  consent ;  and  the  streets  of  our  metropolis  crim- 
soned with  the  blood  of  our  fellow-subjects.  These  and  other 
grievances  and  cruelties,  too  many  to  be  here  enumerated,  and  too 
melancholy  to  be  much  longer  borne  by  this  injured  people,  we  have 
seen  brought  upon  us  by  the  devices  of  ministers  of  state.  We 
have  seen  and  heard,  of  late,  instructions  to  governors  which  threat- 
en to  destroy  all  the  remaining  privileges  of  our  charter.     In  June, 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  351 

1768,  the  House  by  an  instruction  were  ordered  to  rescind  an  excel- 
lent resolution  of  a  former  House  on  pain  of  dissolution :  they  re- 
fused to  comply  with  so  impudent  a  mandate,  and  were  dissolved : 
and  the  Governor,  though  repeatedly  requested,  and  although  the 
exigencies  of  the  Province  demanded  a  General  Assembly,  refused  to 
call  a  new  one  until  the  following  May.  In  the  last  year,  the  Gen- 
eral Court  was  forced  to  give  way  to  regular  troops,  illegally  quar- 
tered in  the  town  of  Boston,  in  consequence  of  instructions  to  crown 
officers,  and  whose  main  guard  was  most  daringly  and  insultingly 
placed  at  the  door  of  the  State-House ;  and  afterwards  they  were 
constrained  to  hold  their  session  at  Cambridge.  The  present  year 
the  Assembly  is  summoned  to  meet,  and  is  still  continued  there  in  a 
kind  of  duress,  without  any  reason  that  can  be  given,  any  motive 
whatever  that  is  not  as  great  an  insult  to  them  and  breach  of  their 
privilege  as  any  of  the  foregoing.  Are  these  things  consistent  with 
the  freedom  of  the  House  ?  or  could  the  General  Court's  tamely  sub- 
mitting to  such  usage  be  thought  to  promote  his  Majesty's  service  ? 
Should  these  struggles  of  the  House  prove  unfortunate  and  ineffectual, 
this  Province  will  submit,  with  pious  resignation,  to  the  will  of  Prov- 
idence ;  but  it  will  be  a  kind  of  suicide,  of  which  we  have  the  utmost 
horror,  thus  to  be  made  the  instruments  of  our  own  servitude."  * 

Hutchinson  replied,  taking  up  the  positions  of  the  House 
one  by  one,  and  commenting  particularly  on  their  having 
called  the  instructions  an  "  impudent  mandate."  "  It  may 
not,"  he  says,  "  be  presumed  you  would  have  done  this,  had 
you  known  it  to  be  an  order  from  his  Majesty.  I  wish  how- 
ever that  you  had  spared  this  coarse  and  indecent  epithet. 
....  The  freedom  you  have  used  with  the  characters  of 
the  Attorneys  and  Solicitors  General  will,  I  fear,  likewise 
bring  dishonor  upon  you."  He  argued  with  ability  and  at 
great  length  upon  his  favorite  subject  of  holding  the  Court 
away  from  Boston  ;  and  seeing  the  impossibility  of  effecting 
any  practical  result,  he  again  prorogued  the  Assembly  to 
the  5th  of  September.!     He   congratulated  himself,  how- 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  July  31,  1770.  Hutchinson's  History,  IH.  525. 
Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  240. 

t  Hutchinson,  IH.  534.     Bradford,  p.  249.     Journal  of  the  House,  Aug.  3. 


352  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Aug. 

ever,  upon  having  in  some  measure  weakened  the  opposition, 
and  hoped  for  still  greater  advances.  To  a  friend  in  Lon- 
don he  wrote  the  next  day  :  — 

"  The  House  having  persisted  in  their  refusal  to  do  business,  I 
have  prorogued  them  to  a  farther  time,  having  gained  over,  in  this 
short  session,  enough  of  the  Council  to  prevent  Bowdoin  from  ob- 
taining a  vote  for  an  address  which  he  had  prepared  conformable  to 
the  sentiments  of  the  faction  of  the  House ;  and  I  hope  to  keep  a 
party  there  strong  enough  to  defeat  his  future  attempts.  Neither 
Worthington,  Murray,  Ruggles,  nor  any  member  capable  of  oppos- 
ing Adams,  &c,  came  to  the  session.  Many,  if  not  a  majority  of  the 
members,  wish  to  go  to  business,  but  are  afraid.  I  will  have  a  full 
House  another  session,  and  have  yet  encouragement  that  I  shall 
carry  the  point  then,  notwithstanding  the  unanimity  now. 

"  I  did  not  design  to  enter  into  any  argument  with  them,  but  I 
found  it  necessary  to  undeceive  the  people,  and,  since  my  speech,  I 
perceive  a  great  alteration  among  them,  and  it  will  certainly  have  a 
good  effect.  The  answer,  drawn  by  Adams,  breathes  the  seditious 
spirit  which  has  appeared  in  Edes  and  Gills's  paper.  The  rudeness 
to  the  King,  to  the  House  of  Commons,  to  the  Ministers  of  State, 
the  declarations  of  independence,  the  menaces  of  an  appeal  to 
Heaven,  and  the  people's  no  longer  bearing  with  their  injuries  with- 
out seeking  redress,  —  plainly  hinting  a  downright  revolt,  —  are  so 
criminal  and  at  the  same  time  so  daring,  that  some  notice  will  be 
taken  of  it,  if  the  nation  is  to  be  aroused  by  anything."  * 

And  two  days  later:  "Worthington,  Ruggles,  Murray, 
nor  any  other  persons  not  afraid  of  Adams  and  the  Boston- 
eers,  would  attend.  If  I  could  persuade  a  few  to  exert  them- 
selves, the  point  would  be  carried  in  the  House  another 
session."  f  It  was  true  that  the  attendance,  at  least  at  the 
commencement  of  the  past  session,  had  been  limited.  At 
first  only  about  forty  members  were  present,  as  shown  by 
the  records.  The  frequent  adjournments  interfered  with 
the  pursuits  of  those  from  distant  parts  of  the  Province,  and, 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  August  3,  1770. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  August  5,.  17  70. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  353 

since  the  prorogation  at  the  close  of  June,  a  full  House 
could  not  be  expected,  especially  at  a  season  when  time  was 
precious  in  the  farming  districts. 

"  The  impudent  mandate,"  as  the  House  called  the  in- 
struction to  rescind  the  Circular  Letter  of  1768,  it  now 
appeared  by  Hutchinson's  late  reply  to  the  message  of  the 
House  came  from  the  King  himself,  as  did  "  every  order 
from  the  Secretary  of  State. "  Mr.  Adams  took  the  ground 
that  instructions  even  from  secretaries  of  state,  if  illegal  and 
subversive  of  charter  rights,  were  open  to  comment. 

"  It  may  have  been,"  he  says,  "  too  much  the  practice  of  late  for 
some  plantation  governors  like  Verres,  either  ancient  or  modern,  to 
oppress  and  plague  the  people  they  were  bound  to  protect,  and,  per- 
haps, in  obedience  to  l  orders  that  have  come  from  secretaries  of 
state.'  These  orders  truly  were  to  be  treated  with  as  profound 
veneration,  without  the  least  inquiry  into  their  nature  and  tendency^ 
as  ever  a  poor  deluded  Catholic  reverenced  the  decree  of  Holy 
Father  at  Rome.  "While  such  a  disposition  prevailed,  O  how  or- 
derly were  the  people !  how  submissive  to  government !  But  when 
once  a  statute  or  the  Constitution  was  pleaded,  which  it  was  as  dan- 
gerous for  the  people  to  look  into  as  it  would  be  for  an  Italian,  after 
the  example  of  the  noble  Bereans,  to  search  the  Scriptures,  the  Sec- 
retary of  State  was  to  be  informed  that  the  people  were  become  re- 
bellious ;  as  they  said  of  St.  Paul  for  preaching  doctrines  opposite 
to  the  humor  of  the  Jewish  masters,  that  he  *  turned  the  world  up- 
side down.'  The  whole  ministerial  cabal  was  summoned,  opinions 
were  called  for  and  taken,  and,  however  ludicrous,  to  say  the  best 
of  them,  those  opinions  were,  if  the  people  did  not  swallow  them 
down  as  law  and  reason,  they  were  told  that  the  freedom  they  used 
with  the  characters  of  great  men,  forsooth,  *  would  bring  dishonor 
upon  them ' ;  and  standing  armies  were  sent  to  convince  them  of  the 
reasonableness  of  these  opinions !  * 

During  the  summer,  the  non-importation  agreements  had 
been  observed  with  less  stringency  than  before.  Throughout 
the  continent,  with  the  exception  of  New  York,  as  the  agita- 

*  "A  Chatterer,"  in  the  Boston.  Gazette,  Aug.  20,  1770. 
vol.  I.  23 


354  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

tion  of  that  particular  topic  ceased  or  had  temporarily  given 
place  to  more  exciting  events,  the  importations  had  been  to 
some  extent  renewed;  and  even  in  New  England,  where, 
perhaps,  a  more  rigid  observance  was  looked  for  than  else- 
where, they  had  amounted  to  nearly  half  as  much  as  usual.* 
The  hardships  of  a  union  which  was  not  universally  kept 
finally  had  its  effect  in  New  York,  where  the  agreement  was 
broken,  though  not  without  a  close  contest  among  the  mer- 
chants ;  and  in  July  large  orders  went  to  England  for  all 
kinds  of  merchandise,  excepting  the  article  of  tea,  upon 
which  the  duty  was  still  maintained.  Abhorrence  at  this 
conduct  was  at  first  manifested  in  America ;  but  in  England, 
where  the  Ministry,  and  especially  Lord  North,  had  expected 
such  a  result,  the  joy  was  unbounded.  The  merchants  con- 
sidered it  as  the  renewal  of  commercial  intercourse  and  per- 
haps the  first  step  towards  a  permanent  reconciliation. 

The  apparent  change  in  public  opinion,  at  least  among 
the  merchants  in  Boston,  was  watched  with  exultation  by 
the  loyalists,  who  regarded  it  as  the  earnest  of  still  further 
successes.  The  defection,  in  different  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, on  the  non-importation  scheme,  was  supposed  to  have 
been  caused  by  emissaries  of  the  Ministry,  and  for  a  while 
the  plan  succeeded  but  too  well.  But  even  while  the  action 
of  the  New  York  merchants  was  producing  a  commotion 
throughout  the  continent,  an  order  had  arrived  in  Boston 
marking  the  beginning  of  martial  law  in  Massachusetts,  and 
the  commencement  of  the  system  of  measures  which  showed 
that  the  Ministry  were  now  convinced  that  the  Colonists 
were  aiming  at  independence,  and  would  not  be  satisfied 
with  the  mere  abstract  rights  for  which  they  had  been  con- 
tending. That  this  supposition  on  the  part  of  government 
was  ill  founded  was  as  true  as  that  Hutchinson  and  the 
crown  officers  had  been  unwearying  in  their  efforts  to  poison 
the  minds  of  men  in  England  against  the  Americans.  With 
the  exception  of  Samuel  Adams,  who,  from  the  arrival  of 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  365,  366. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  355 

the  troops  in  the  fall  of  1768,  had  made  American  Independ- 
ence the  one  aim  of  his  life,  none  of  the  leaders  nor  the  peo- 
ple themselves  were  prepared  for  or  desired  a  separation  from 
the  mother  country.*  But  the  idea  had  been  fast  gaining 
ground  in  England,  and  decisive  measures  were  now  to  be 
used. 

An  order  had  been  adopted  by  the  King  in  Council,  in 
July,  which  made  Boston  Harbor  "  the  rendezvous  of  all 
ships  stationed  in  North  America,' '  while  the  fortress  was  to 
be  garrisoned  by  regular  troops,  and  put  into  a  respectable 
state  of  defence.f  The  Lieutenant-Governor  now  received 
instructions  from  General  Gage  to  deliver  Castle  William  to 
Colonel  Dalrymple,  — :  a  manifest  violation  of  the  charter  of 
the  Province,  which  expressly  provided  that  the  Castle  and 
forts  should  be  in  command  of  the  Governor ;  and  moreover 
the  Castle  had  been  built,  repaired,  and  garrisoned  solely 
at  the  expense  of  the  Province.  So  unparalleled  was  the 
usurpation,  that  when  the  order  arrived,  Hutchinson,  with 
all  his  supple  servility  to  arbitrary  mandates,  hesitated  as  to 
his  course  in  the  matter 4  The  transfer  however  was  made. 
The  particulars  of  this  affair  cannot  be  more  plainly  narrated 
than  was  done  in  the  letter  of  Hutchinson  himself,  written  a 
few  days  after  the  Castle  had  been  surrendered. 

"  The  King's  order  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  garrison  from  the 
Castle  came  to  hand  by  express  Saturday,  the  8th,  towards  even- 
ing. I  kept  the  express  that  night  in  my  house  at  Milton,  and  sent 
a  servant  to  the  Castle  for  Dalrymple  to  come  to  me  early  the  next 
morning.  We  then  settled  this  point,  —  that  nothing  should  be  done 
which  could  infer  my  giving  up  the  right  which  the  Governor  has 
by  commission  and  charter,  to  the  ordering  in  general  all  forts  within 
the  Province ;  and  I  was  to  write  what  was  necessary  to  the  Gen- 
eral upon  this  subject.  We  then  agreed  to  meet  early  the  next 
morning  at  the  Secretary's  house  in  Boston.  I  there  gave  him  an 
order  to  Phillips  to  take  off  the  sentries  in  the  pay  of  the  Prov- 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  192.  t  Bancroft,  VI.  369. 

t  Hutchinson  to  General  Gage,  Sept.  9,  1770. 


356  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

ince,  and  to  admit  such  of  the  regulars  as  Colonel  Dalrymple  should 
direct. 

"  As  soon  as  Dalrymple  had  left  the  town  I  went  to  Council,  and 
having  cleared  the  chamber  of  the  clerks,  &c,  I  enjoined  the  mem- 
bers secrecy  upon  their  oaths,  until  they  should  be  dismissed  or  I 
should  discharge  them.  I  then  directed  the  order  of  his  Majesty  in 
Council  to  be  read  to  them,  and  read  myself  that  part  of  my  Lord 
Hillsborough's  letter  which  required  me  immediately  to  put  that 
part  of  the  order  which  concerned  me  in  execution.  I  told  them  I 
did  not  need  their  advice,  whether  to  obey  the  King's  order  or  not, 
but  I  thought  so  much  respect  was  due  to  them  as  to  let  them  know 
it  before  it  was  made  public ;  as  it  soon  must  be  by  the  execution 
of  it.  They  were  all  struck  when  they  heard  the  order.  Pitts  said, 
perhaps  it  was  executed  already.  I  made  no  reply.  It  was  not 
suggested  that  I  could  refuse  obedience,  but  I  was  asked  whether, 
by  charter,  the  command  of  the  Castle  was  not  with  me.  I  told 
them  I  should  give  up  no  right  which  they  had  by  charter.  The 
Governor  was  to  commit  the  custody  and  government  of  forts  to 
such  persons  as  to  himself  should  seem  meet.  It  now  seemed  meet 
to  me  to  commit  the  Castle  to  Colonel  Dalrymple,  to  be  garrisoned 
by  the  regulars.  What  induced  me  to  this,  I  was  not  liable  to  be 
questioned  or  called  to  account  for.  There  was  then  considerable 
debate  about  the  arms,  ammunition,  &c,  which  some  thought  ought 
to  be  removed.  Of  this,  I  told  them,  I  was  the  sole  judge.  When- 
ever they  were  wanted  for  his  Majesty's  service,  I  should  employ 
them.  After  about  two  hours,  about  one  o'clock,  I  released  them 
from  their  obligation  to  secrecy,  and  dismissed  them,  and  my  car- 
riage being  at  the  door,  I  went  immediately  to  the  Neck,  where  I 
had  ordered  my  barge  to  be  ready. 

"As  soon  as  I  came  to  the  Castle,  I  went  into  Phillips's  room,  who 
could  not  have  been  more  affected  under  sentence  of  death,  and  the 
whole  garrison  was  in  tears.  I  sent  for  the  keys ;  and  Colonel  Dal- 
rymple coming  up  to  the  state-room,  attended  by  his  officers,  I  deliv- 
ered them  to  him,  and  committed  to  him  the  custody  and  government 
of  the  Castle,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  authority  given  me  by  his 
Majesty's  commission  to  govern  the  Province  according  to  charter, 
and  in  obedience  to  his  Majesty's  command  signified  to  me,  &c. 

"  I  went  in  the  evening  to  Milton,  where  I  spent  the  next  day, 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  357 

being  Tuesday ;  but  on  Wednesday  morning  I  had  repeated  mes- 
sages to  acquaint  me  with  the  rage  many  people  were  in.  That 
Adams,  in  particular,  was  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  people,  de- 
claring that  I  had  broken  the  charter  by  giving  up  the  Gastle  ;  and 
it  was  reported  that  I  had  been  waylaid,  and  was  missed  on  my 
return  from  the  Castle,  and  many  other  threatening  speeches  were 
brought  to  me ;  and  in  the  afternoon  my  brother  vehemently  pressed 
my  going  to  the  Castle  and  sending  my  children  to  town ;  and  the 
Secretary  and  Treasurer,  who  were  with  him,  though  not  alike  ap- 
prehensive of  danger,  thought  it  best.  I  had  before  recovered  my 
papers,  and  in  the  evening  I  took  boat  at  Dorchester,  two  or  three 
miles  from  my  house,  and  went  to  the  Castle ;  and  you  will  believe 
I  could  not  help  thinking  of  you  and  my  passage  to  the  same  place 
five  years  before.  I  went  the  next  day  to  town  upon  some  ordinary 
business  of  Council,  and  returned  in  the  evening  to  the  Castle,  assign- 
ing this  reason,  that  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  full  inventory  of  the 
stores,  ammunition,  arms,  &c,  and  tarried  until  Saturday,  receiving 
intelligence  from  time  to  time  of  the  state  of  the  town. 

"  There  happened  during  this  time  to  be  a  very  grand  meeting  of 
merchants  and  tradesmen  upon  the  subject  of  importation,  when  Ad- 
ams made  an  attempt  to  inflame  them,  declaring  I  had  given  up  the 
Castle  and  would  give  up  the  charter ;  but  some  of  the  merchants 
declared  that  was  not  the  business  of  the  meeting,  and  repeatedly 
stopped  him  from  going  on.  This,  my  friends  thought,  was  a  sort 
of  trial  of  the  strength  of  the  faction,  and  that  this  incendiary  would 
not  be  able  to  accomplish  his  purpose."  * 

This  letter  is  an  interesting  narrative  of  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor's  own  part  in  the  transaction,  and  in  that  respect 
bears  truth  on  its  face  ;  but  it  displays  the  nervous  coward- 
ice of  the  man  who  was  continually  agitated  with  the  fear 
of  personal  harm,  when  nothing  was  further  from  the  inten- 
tions of  the  people.  Their  forbearance  had  been  signally 
demonstrated  after  the  recent  Massacre,  when  law  asserted 
its  supremacy  over  an  exasperated  populace. 

Another  trait  in  the  letter  is  the  ill-concealed  desire  of 
self-laudation  in  the  writer,  whose  anxiety  to  shine  as  a  reso- 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Sept.  15,  1770. 


358  •       LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept.,  Oct. 

lute  and  determined  officer  is  apparent.  He  knew  that  Ber- 
nard showed  his  letters  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  who  in  turn 
submitted  them  to  the  inspection  of  the  King.  His  darling 
ambition  was  to  receive  his  commission  as  Governor  of  the 
Province,  and  his  letters  were  all  adroitly  tinged  with  the 
coloring  which  he  conceived  suited  to  that  end.  The  har- 
angues by  Samuel  Adams  were  founded  in  justice ;  and 
whether  the  reports  of  his  inflaming  the  minds  of  the  people 
were  true  or  not,  it  was  time  that  the  public  should  be 
awake  to  this  fatal  stab  at  their  liberties.  The  seizure  of 
the  Castle  was  the  first  step  in  the  system  of  armed  coer- 
cion. Samuel  Adams  saw  in  it  another  approach  towards 
the  goal  for  which  his  soul  longed ;  for,  to  his  imagination, 
the  dawning  tints  of  American  Independence  were  already 
discernible  in  the  political  horizon. 

During  the  excitement  produced  by  this  act,  the  Legislature 
met  at  Cambridge,  to  which  place  it  had  been  adjourned  for 
September.  A  committee,  with  Mr.  Adams  among  the  num- 
ber, immediately  waited  upon  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  and 
desired  him  to  move  the  General  Court  to  Boston.  A  day 
of  solemn  fasting,  prayer,  and  humiliation  was  appointed  and 
observed,  and  thence,  until  the  close  of  October,  the  House 
and  Council  were  engaged  with  Hutchinson  in  lengthy  dis- 
cussions on  the  late  surrender  of  the  Castle  to  the  royal 
troops.  On  the  13th,  the  House,  in  a  message,  desired  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  to  inform  them  whether  he  still  held 
command  of  Castle  William.  Hutchinson  answered,  that  in 
withdrawing  a  garrison  which  had  been  paid  by  the  Prov- 
ince, and  substituting  one  paid  by  the  King,  in  pursuance , 
of  instructions  from  him,  no  part  of  the  charter  rights  of  the 
Province  had  been  given  up.  The  House  replied  in  the  lan- 
guage of  their  committee,  of  which  Samuel  Adams  was 
chairman :  — 

u  This  answer  appears  to  the  House  to  be  somewhat  equivocal. 
For  your  Honor  may  possibly  differ  with  the  House  in  your  con- 
struction of  the  clause  in  the  charter  which  we  have  recited.     By 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  359 

this  clause,  the  Governor  of  the  Province  is  undoubtedly  vested 
with  the  command  of  that  fortress.  Your  Honor  may  have  been 
instructed  to  transfer  that  command  to  his  Majesty's  chief  military 
officer  in  America  or  any  other  person.  If  that  be  the  case,  the 
power  which  is  vested  in  you  by  the  charter  is  superseded  by  in- 
structions. A  doubt  in  the  House,  respecting  a  matter  of  so  very 
interesting  a  nature  to  the  Province,  is  the  occasion  of  this  repeated 
message  to  your  Honor,  to  request  that  you  would,  in  an  explicit 
manner,  assure  us  whether  you  still  hold  the  command  of  his  Maj- 
esty's Castle  William."* 

To  this  the  Lieutenant-Governor  again  returned  an  equiv- 
ocal answer,  in  much  the  same  dictatorial  and  cavalier 
terms  he  had  used  to  the  Council  in  breaking  the  news  of 
his  instructions.  The  House  seeing  that  every  legal  effort 
to  inquire  into  their  rights  was  to  be  hopelessly  repulsed, 
ceased  to  press  the  subject ;  but  the  Council  made  one  more 
effort  to  obtain  an  authentic  copy  of  Hillsborough's  letter 
concerning  the  Province,  or  Council,  in  order  to  "  vindicate 
their  character,  and  to  prevent  any  infringement  on  the 
charter  rights  of  the  Province.' '  The  Governor  replied  that 
he  was  "  strictly  forbidden  to  give  a  copy  of  said  letter, 
report,  or  order,  or  even  to  mention  them,  by  speech  or  mes- 
sage, to  either  House."  The  Council  then  prepared  a  long 
and  able  report  respecting  the  misrepresentations  concern- 
ing the  Board  made  to  the  Ministry ;  and  by  vote  this  was 
forwarded  to  Mr.  Bollan,  their  agent  in  London,  together 
with  a  full  statement  of  the  seizure  of  the  Castle  and  other 
infringements  on  the  public  liberties. 

Finding  that  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  the  ordinary 
methods  of  legislative  inquiry  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  as 
to  the  principles  involved  in  the  change  at  the  Castle,  Mr. 
Adams  resorted  to  the  press,  and  discussed  the  subject  in  a 
series  of  articles.  One  of  these,  after  referring  to  a  previous 
essay  on  the  same  topic,  continues :  — 

"In  imitation  of  some  of  my  brethren,  I  solemnly  warned  my 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  Oct.  23,  1770. 


360  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

readers,  by  way  of  application,  of  the  danger  of  certain  instructions, 
or,  as  they  were  termed, ?  ministerial  mandates,'  we  had  about  that 
time  been  told  of,  which  appeared  to  me  to  be  equal  to  that  of  reve- 
nue acts  or  standing  armies  to  enforce  them.  I  little  thought  that 
these  instructions  or  mandates,  call  them  what  you  will,  would,  in 
their  effects,  have  made  so  rapid  a  progress  in  so  short  a  time,  as  I 
find  they  have,  since  the  present  administration  began.  For  I  per- 
ceive that  our  House  of  Representatives  have  plainly  told  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor that  *  merely  in  obedience  to  instructions,  he  has 
made  an  absolute  surrender  of  Castle  William  to  his  Majesty's 
forces,  with  a  most  express  resignation  of  his  power  of  garrisoning 
the  same  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Dalrymple.'  And,  to  prove  it,  they 
recite  his  Honor's  orders,  under  his  own  hand,  to  Captain  Phillips  to 
deliver  that  fort  into  the  hands  of  the  commanding  officer  of  his 
Majesty's  regular  forces,  then  upon  the  island,  to  be  garrisoned  by 
such  detachment  as  he  should  order !  To  this,  indeed,  his  Honor 
says,  *  there  is  nothing  in  the  orders  I  gave  to  Captain  Phillips 
which  does  not  perfectly  consist  with  my  retaining  the  command 
of  the  Castle,  and  my  right  to  exchange  the  present  garrison  for  the 
former,  or  any  other,  as  I  shall  think  proper.'  But  I  must  confess, 
it  is  mysterious  to  me  how  his  Honor  can  retain  the  right  to  dismiss 
Colonel  Dalrymple  and  his  detachment  when  he  pleases,  or  ex- 
change the  present  garrison  for  any  other,  as  he  shall  think  proper, 
after  having  delivered  the  fort,  without  any  reservation,  into  the 
hands  of  Colonel  Dalrymple,  in  consequence  of  express  orders 
from  another,  to  be  garrisoned  by  such  detachment  as  he  shall  order. 
I  am  not  so  certain  that  his  Honor,  who  pays  a  sacred  regard  to 
instructions,  will  easily  be  persuaded  to  exchange  the  present  gar- 
rison for  the  former  or  any  other,  however  necessary  such  exchange 
may  be,  without  first  having  leave  from  the  Right  Honorable  the 
Earl  of  Hillsborough,  as  full  and  express  as  the  orders  he  received 
from  his  Lordship  to  place  the  present  garrison  there.  Others  may 
reconcile  an  absolute  delegation  of  power,  without  any  reserve,  by 
the  express  orders  of  a  superior,  with  a  right  retained  in  the  person 
who  is  thus  ordered  to  delegate,  to  exercise  the  same  power  when 
he  pleases.  I  have  not  that  intuitive  knowledge  which  some  men  are 
said  to  be  blessed  with,  and,  therefore,  it  will  not  be  thought  strange 
if  I  do  not  see  clearly  through  this  mystery  in  politics.  The  House 
further  observe  that,  *  as  his  Honor  has  heretofore  repeatedly  de- 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  361 

clared  that  he  has  no  authority  over  the  King's  troops  in  the  Prov- 
ince, it  was  absurd  to  suppose  he  could  have  command  of  a  fort  thus 
unreservedly  surrendered  to,  and  in  full  possession  of,  such  troops,' 
which  appears  to  be  a  just  conclusion.  For  can  any  one  believe 
that  Colonel  Dalrymple  will  hold  himself  obliged  to  march  the 
King's  troops  under  his  command  out  of  that  fort,  in  obedience  to 
the  orders  of  one  who  has  no  authority  over  them  ? 

"  Think  not,  Messrs.  Printers,  that  I  am  now  finding  fault ;  for  if 
his  Honor  has,  '  in  this  instance,  divested  himself  of  a  power  of  gov- 
erning which  is  vested  in  him  by  the  charter  for  the  safety  of  the 
Province,'  as  wiser  heads  than  mine  have  determined,  who  will  dare 
to  find  fault  ?  It  was  done  by  virtue  of  instructions,  and  we  are 
told  that  instructions  from  a  minister  of  state  come  mediately  from 

the  K ;  and  his  Honor  knows  that  instructions,  whatever  '  coarse 

epithet'  may  have  been  bestowed  upon  them,  are  'founded  in  very 
wise  reasons,'  and  ought  not  to  be  treated  with  contempt.  Holt, 
Somers,  and  others,  who  near  eighty  years  ago  laid  their  heads 
together  to  form  our  charter,  were  certainly  wise  and  great  men ; 
and  King  William,  who  gave  it,  was  as  certainly  a  wise  and  good 

king.     But  does  not  the  wisdom  of  my  Lord  of  H h  far  exceed 

theirs  ?  Pray,  does  not  every  measure  which  he  has  advised  fully 
evince  this,  to  the  conviction  of  all  but  a  few  factious  fellows  here 
and  there  ?  The  friends  of  government  are  willing  to  submit  what 
judgment  they  have  to  such  profound  wisdom ;  and  what  if  our  old 
fashion  charter  should  be  pared  down  by  instructions,  and  a  power 

or  two  of  the  G r,  vested  in  him  for  the  safety  of  the  people, 

should  even  be  annihilated  by  them,  we*  are  only  to  believe  there  are 
very  wise  reasons  for  it,  and  we  shall  find  that  all  is  for  the  best." 

Mr.  Adams  then  speaks  of  the  depositions  taken  of  persons 
who  were  present  at  the  surrender  of  the  Castle,  and  dis- 
cusses, at  some  length,  the  right  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
to  deliver  the  fort  in  obedience  to  instructions  violating  the 
charter. 

"  I  may  venture  to  say,"  he  continues,  "  there  has  not  been  an 
instance  of  this  kind  since  the  date  of  our  charter,  and  in  the  opin- 
ion of  judicious  and  unprejudiced  persons,  it  is  a  matter  of  very 
great  moment.     Our  enemies  may  now  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing 


362  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct.,  1770. 

the  principal  fort  and  key  of  the  Province  in  the  hands  of  persons 
who  have  not  the  least  dependence  upon  it ;  the  capital  environed 
with  ships  of  war;  the  General  Assembly  removed  from  its  an- 
cient seat  into  the  country ;  and  the  College,  which  has  been  liber- 
ally supported  by  the  people  for  the  education  of  our  youth,  has 
been  made  a  seat  of  government,  under  a  pretence,  as  it  is  said,  of  a 
prerogative  in  the  Crown  to  take  up  any  public  buildings,  —  all  by 
virtue  of  instructions,  which  we  are  implicitly  to  believe  are  founded 
in  wise  reasons  ;  while  the  people  throughout  the  Province,  whether 
they  are  sensible  of  it  or  not,  are  every  day  contributing  to  a  reve- 
nue raised  by  the  act  of  a  Legislature  in  which  they  are  not,  and 
cannot  be,  represented,  and  against  their  most  earnest  petitions  and 
warmest  remonstrances!     Surely  these   are  not  the   blessings   of 

adm n,  for  which  we  are  this  week  to  return  to  Almighty  God 

our  unfeigned  thanks."  * 

*"A  Chatterer,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  3,  1770.     The  last  sentence 
refers  to  a  public  fast  or  thanksgiving  which  had  been  proclaimed. 


CHAPTER  XYIII. 

Correspondence  with  Arthur  Lee.  —  Franklin  and  Lee.  —  The  Non-importation 
Agreements  broken. — Decline  in  the  Opposition  to  the  Measures  of  Parlia- 
ment. — Death  of  Deberdt.  —  Franklin  elected  Agent.  —  Adams  drafts  a  Let- 
ter of  Instructions  from  the  Assembly  to  Dr.  Franklin,  and  proposes  Inter-col- 
onial Committees  of  Correspondence.  —  Correspondence  with  Stephen  Sayre, 
Dr.  Lucas,  and  John  Wilkes.  —  Massachusetts  becomes  quiet.  —  Hutchin- 
»  son  receives  his  Commission  as  Governor.  —  Meeting  of  the  Legislature 
and  renewed  Controversies. — Adams  effects  a  Change  in  Political  Lan- 
guage to  undermine  the  Idea  of  Parliamentary  Supremacy.  —  The  Govern- 
or's Salary  to  be  made  independent  of  the  Legislature,  and  payable  by  the 
Crown.  —  The  House  desire  Information,  and  are  peremptorily  prorogued. 

It  was  in  this  year  that  Arthur  Lee  began  to  correspond 
with  Mr.  Adams.  He  was  a  young  lawyer,  who,  leaving  his 
native  Virginia  at  an  early  age,  had  been  educated  at  the 
University  of  Edinburgh.  In  1766,  locating  himself  at  Lon- 
don, he  commenced  the  study  of  the  law  in  the  Temple.  He 
became  the  intimate  friend  of  Sir  William  Jones ;  and  as 
much  by  his  character,  talents,  and  literary  acquirements,  as 
by  his  connection  with  the  distinguished  family  whose  name 
he  bore,  gained  a  wide  influence  in  England  and  America  in 
the  cause  of  freedom.  Mr.  Adams,  always  desirous  of  keep- 
ing in  communication  with  gentlemen  abroad  whose  sympa- 
thies were  with  the  Americans,  applied  to  Mr.  Lee  through 
a  mutual  friend,  —  Mr.  Stephen  Sayre,  —  and  his  suggestion 
was  immediately  accepted.  The  correspondence  was  con- 
tinued through  the  Revolution ;  and  how  faithfully  it  was 
maintained  is  shown  by  their  printed  letters.  Valuable 
information  and  hints  passed  between  them  on  all  important 
public  matters  for  a  period  of  thirteen  years.* 

The  death  of  Dennys  Deberdt,  who  had  long  and  ably 
served  the  Assembly  as  their  agent,  brought  on  the  election 

*  See  the  correspondence  from  1771  to  1783,  in  R.  H.  Lee's  Life  of  Arthur  Lee. 


364  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

of  a  successor ;  and  the  question  coming  up  on  October  23d, 
Mr.  Adams  and  about  one  third  of  the  House  *  voted  for 
Arthur  Lee ;  but  Benjamin  Franklin,  then  in  London, 
received  the  majority  of  suffrages,  and  became  thenceforth 
the  advocate  of  Massachusetts  in  England,  where  he  was 
already  acting  for  other  Provinces.  Arthur  Lee  was  ap- 
pointed his  substitute  in  case  of  his  death  or  absence. 
Franklin  was  ardently  desirous  of  a  reconciliation.!  Re- 
garding the  idea  of  a  revolt  and  civil  war  with  reluctance, 
his  enlarged  views  and  boundless  benevolence  turned  away 
from  the  thought  of  a  dismemberment  of  the  nation.  It  is 
probable  that  the  choice  of  Dr.  Franklin  did  not  entirely 
satisfy  Mr.  Adams.  If  he  had  ever  known  Franklin  person- 
ally, it  was  many  years  before,  when  the  present  issues 
had  not  arisen.  He  was  not  prepared  to  admit  that  even 
Franklin's  sincerity  of  purpose  and  wisdom  were  the  only 
requisites  to  face  the  determined  oppressors  of  his  country, 
and  he  may  have  thought  that  the  official  positions  of  father 
and  son,  —  the  one  being  Deputy-Postmaster  of  America, 
and  the  other  the  royal  Governor  of  New  Jersey,  —  together 
with  Franklin's  constant  desire  to  restore  harmony,  might 
incline  him  to  concede  too  much  to  the  demands  of  govern- 
ment. Arthur  Lee  soon  began  to  entertain  suspicions  of 
Franklin,  and  communicated  his  reasons  to  Samuel  Adams 
during  the  next  year,  J  and,  however  ill-founded  these  opin- 
ions afterwards  proved  to  be,  they  probably  added  to  such 
doubts  as  might  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Adams, 
whose  anxiety  in  the  cause  made  him  at  times  over-cautious 
in  whom  to  confide.  But  he  soon  became  a  warm  admirer 
of  Franklin,  and  a  perfect  understanding  existed  between 
them  thereafter.  Their  mutual  friend,  Samuel  Cooper, 
writing  to  Franklin  on  this  subject,  says :  — 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  S.  Sayre,  Nov.  16,  1770.  Cushing  appears  to  have 
favored  the  choice  of  Sayre.     See  his  letter  to  Sayre,  Nov.  6,  1770. 

t  Compare  Grahame's  History,  II.  426,  461,  462,  and  Franklin's  Works, 
edited  by  Sparks,  I.  378-390;  V.  1-82. 

X   Arthur  Lee  to  Samuel  Adams,  June  10,  1771. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  365 

"  I  have  the  pleasure  to  find  that  a  confidence  in  your  abilities  and 
principles  is  far  from  being  diminished  in  our  House  of  Commons, 
and  to  assure  you  that  one  of  the  members  for  this  town,  Mr.  Sam- 
uel Adams,  a  correspondent  of  Dr.  Lee's,  who  had  the  chief  hand  in 
a  letter  from  the  House  to  you,  which  I  perceive  by  your  reply  gave 
you  uneasiness,  has  lately  expressed  the  warmest  esteem  for  you  as 
an  important  and  thorough  friend  to  the  rights  of  America.  This 
gentleman  I  regard  for  his  uncommon  zeal  and  activity  in  support 
of  these  rights ;  but  I  have  repeatedly  found  occasion,  in  a  friendly 
manner,  to  blame  his  excessive  jealousy  in  a  cause  peculiary  dear 
to  him ;  which  has  sometimes  led  him  to  treat  not  in  the  kindest 
manner  some  of  its  faithful  advocates,  and  particularly  Governor 
Pownall."* 

Not  only  in  private  conversation,  but  in  the  press,  Mr. 
Adams  afterwards  paid  deserved  tribute  to  the  "  penetrating 
genius  "  and  "  extended  views  "  of  Franklin.f  Through  the 
Revolution  they  worked  and  corresponded  together,  and  early 
in  the  present  century  there  remained  some  of  Franklin's 
letters  to  Samuel  Adams,  which  have  been  carelessly  de- 
stroyed or  lost  with  other  valuable  papers. 

The  disaffection  throughout  the  continent  in  regard  to 
the  non-importation  agreement  was  an  increasing  source  of 
pleasure  to  the  loyalists  in  Boston,  and  of  equal  mortification 
to  the  stanch  friends  of  liberty.  During  the  summer,  soon 
after  the  first  symptoms  of  breaking  the  compact  appeared, 
there  had  been  a  meeting  of  merchants  in  Boston,  at  which 
it  was  voted  to  tear  the  yielding  letter  of  the  New  York  mer- 
chants in  pieces  and  throw  it  to  the  winds.  But,  as  the 
year  wore  away,  the  observance  of  the  agreement,  even  in 

*  Cooper  to  Franklin,  Nov.  10,  1770  (Franklin's  Works,  VIII.  99).  This 
allusion  to  Pownall  may  refer  to  a  town  meeting  held  in  July  of  this  year,  and 
mentioned  by  Hutchinson  in  a  letter  to  Commodore  Hood,  July  11,  1770. 
He  says :  "At  a  meeting  yesterday  the  spirit  rose  very  high.  Independence 
was  a  word  much  used.  They  expressed  also  resentment  against  Pownall  for 
advising  them  to  avoid  severity  in  their  pursuit  against  Preston." 

t  Samuel  Adams,  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  Sept.  20,  1773;  and  Bancroft 
VI.  469. 


366  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 

Massachusetts,  fell  rapidly  away,  until  it  seems  to  have  been 
generally  disregarded.*  Hutchinson  had  predicted  this,  and 
wrote  as  early  as  July  :  — 

"  If  Philadelphia  should  follow  the  example  of  New  York,  I  think 
Boston  will  hold  out  no  longer.  If  it  should  not,  I  doubt  whether 
there  is  firmness  enough  in  the  merchants  to  oppose  the  populace. 
The  tea  will  be  supplied.  There  will  not  be  a  pound  less  imported, 
but  it  will  come  from  Holland  instead  of  England."  + 

And  a  month  later,  he  wrote  :  — 

"The  distresses  of  the  town  of  Boston  have  not  yet  opened  its 
eyes.  They  do  not  consider  that  it  is  only  a  few  of  the  merchants 
in  England  who  are  losers  by  their  non-importation,  and  that  the 
tradesmen  and  manufacturers  do  not  feel  it.  The  infamous  Moli- 
neux  and  Young,  with  Cooper,  Adams,  and  two  or  three  more,  still 
influence  the  mob,  who  threaten  all  who  import ;  but  it  seems  im- 
possible that  it  should  hold  out  much  longer.  Many,  who  at  first 
were  zealous  among  the  merchants  against  importing,  are  now  as 
zealous  for  it."  $ 

In  a  few  months  the  Lieutenant-Governor  s  surmise  was 
verified.  Samuel  Adams  did  not  flag  in  his  exertions  to 
stem  the  tide,  but  they  were  to  no  purpose.  In  November, 
he  wrote  to  a  correspondent  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
in  reply  to  a  letter  on  public  affairs  :  — 

"The  non-importation  agreement,  since  the  defection  of  New 
York,  is  entirely  at  an  end.  From  the  beginning  I  have  been  ap- 
prehensive that  it  would  fall  short  of  our  wishes.  It  was  continued 
much  beyond  my  expectation.  There  are  here,  and  I  suppose  every- 
where, men  interested  enough  to  render  such  a  plan  abortive. 
Through  the  influence  of  the  Commissioners  and  Tories  here,  Boston 
has  been  made  to  appear  in  an  odious  light,  but  I  would  not  have 
you  to  believe  it  to  be  the  true  light.    The  merchants,  in  general, 

*  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Jan.  26,  1770  (Massachusetts  Historical 
Society's  Collections,  4th  Series,  IV.  457). 

t  Hutchinson  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  July  26, 1770. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Aug.  28,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  367 

have  punctually  abode  by  their  agreement,  to  their  very  great  pri- 
vate loss.  Some  few  have  found  means  to  play  a  dishonorable  game 
without  detection,  though  the  utmost  pains  have  been  taken.  The 
body  of  the  people  remained  firm  until  the  merchants  receded.  I 
am  very  sorry  the  agreement  was  ever  entered  into,  as  it  has  turned 
out  unfortunate.  Let  us  then  even  forget  that  there  has  been  such 
a  futile  combination,  and  awaken  our  attention  to  our  first  grand 
object.  Let  the  Colonies  still  convince  their  implacable  enemies 
that  they  are  united  in  constitutional  principles,  and  are  resolved 
they  will  not  be  slaves ;  that  their  dependence  is  not  upon  mer- 
chants, or  any  particular  class  of  men,  nor  is  their  dernier  resort  a 
resolution  barely  to  withold  commerce  with  the  nation  that  would 
subject  them  to  despotic  power."  * 

Though  many  desponded  at  this  crisis,  Mr.  Adams  was 
only  nerved  to  still  greater  efforts,  and  the  moment  his  exer- 
tions had  brought  about  another  opportunity,  he  was  pre- 
pared to  revive  the  scheme,  which  he  ultimately  did  with 
perfect  success.  "  I  knew,"  said  Andrew  Eliot,  "  our  mer- 
chants, &c,  could  not  hold  out  much  longer,  and  therefore 
thought  it  best  when  the  Parliament  repealed  all  the  duties, 
except  that  on  tea,  to  put  on  a  show  of  good  humor,  and  to 
import  everything  but  that  article.  This  would  have  saved 
appearances,  whereas  now  I  fear  we  shall  be  thought  entirely 
vanquished. "  f  But  this  was  not  the  policy  of  Samuel  Adams 
and  his  inflexible  friends,  who  saw  clearly  the  danger  of 
receding  in  the  least  from  the  original  principle.  An  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  right  to  tax  one  article  was  virtually 
acknowledging  the  right  to  tax  all,  and  would  ignobly  have 
terminated  the  contest  upon  which  the  liberties  of  a  conti- 
nent were  staked. 

The  Legislature  continued  sitting  through  October  and 
November.  The  Province  was  gradually  growing  more 
quiet,  and  a  less  determined  spirit  was  manifested  than  had 
been  shown  in  the  previous  session.    The  temporary  calm 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Peter  Timothy,  Nov.  21,  1770. 
t  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Jan.  26,  1771. 


368  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

which  was  settling  over  political  affairs  boded  no  good  to  the 
public  liberties.  The  project  of  producing  divisions,  by  ar- 
raying the  Colonies  against  each  other,  was  already  started 
by  the  Ministry.* 

"  It  is  the  Machiavelian  doctrine,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  as  he  pene- 
trated their  arts,  "  divide  et  impera,  divide  and  rule.  But  the  peo- 
ple of  this  Province  and  of  this  continent  are  too  wise,  and  they  are 
lately  become  too  experienced  to  be  catched  in  such  a  snare.  While 
their  common  rights  are  invaded,  they  will  consider  themselves  as 
embarked  in  the  same  bottom  ;  and  that  union  which  they  have 
hitherto  maintained  against  all  the  efforts  of  their  more  powerful 
common  enemies  will  still  cement "  them.f 

But  not  only  this  danger  of  division  threatened  the  cause. 
The  breach  of  the  non-importation  scheme  pointed  to  still 
greater  concessions.  "  New  York,"  Eliot  wrote,  "  throws 
the  blame  on  us,  and  accuses  this  town  of  treachery.  The 
zeal  of  the  populace,  by  which  they  had  been  restrained  a 
great  while,  gradually  abated.  There  are  many  of  them 
uneasy,  and  grumble,  but  all  is  quiet.  There  is  no  disposi- 
tion to  mobs,  none  are  tarred  or  feathered !  the  Commission- 
ers are  not  molested,  Vindex  writes,  Philantro  [sic]  is  about 
to  write.  The  Colonies  are  divided  and  jealous  of  each 
other."  $  —  "I  hope,"  wrote  Hutchinson,  "for  more  ease, 
at  least  for  a  season,  and  that  some  intemperate  spirits  who 
have  been  the  cause  of  this  Colony's  making  so  conspicuous 
a  figure,  and  taking  so  great  a  share  in  the  disorders  of 
America,  are  losing  their  influence,  but  I  may  be  mis- 
taken." §  The  removal  of  the  troops  from  the  town  had 
"  smoothed  the  way  for  conciliation,"  ||  and  the  quiet  which 

*  Barry's  History  of  Massachusetts,  II.  435. 

t  "Vindex/'  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  Dec.  31,  1770.  The  "Machiavel- 
ian doctrine "  alluded  to  seems  to  have  made  an  impression  on  Hutchinson. 
See  his  History,  III.  331,  note. 

X  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Jan.  26,  1771. 

§  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  October,  1770. 

U  Bancroft,  VI.  350. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  369 

reigned  in  the  Province  might  have  promoted  such  meas- 
ures ;  but  the  Ministry  still  looked  towards  setting  the  Colo- 
nies against  each  other,  and  the  tax  upon  tea  still  remained. 
In  the  House,  too,  the  tone  was  by  no  means  so  high  as 
heretofore.     In  the  June  session,  when  the  question  of  pro- 
ceeding to  business,  while  convened  at  Cambridge,  had  come 
up,  ninety-six  out  of  one  hundred  and  two  members  had 
voted  against    proceeding.     Now,  when  only  eighty-eight 
members  could  be  gathered,  owing  to  the  frequent  proroga- 
tions, they  were  more  equally  divided.     At  the  opening  of 
the  session,  it  was  resolved  that  the  House  proceed  to  pub- 
lic business  from  absolute  necessity  only;  and  Samuel  Adams 
drew  up   a   protest   against  the   "  constraint  the   General 
Assembly  was  held  under  to  proceed  to  business  out  of  the 
Town-House  in  Boston."     In  the  records  kept  by  Samuel 
Adams   himself,  it  appears   that,  "  previous  to  this  deter- 
mination which  involved  in  it  the  grand  question  whether 
to  continue  the  stand  they  had  made  or  not,  it  was  moved 
and  ordered  that  the  matter  be  decided  by  yeas  and  nays ; 
and  the  members  being  accordingly  called  upon  seriatim  to 
give  their  voices,  it  was   carried  by  fifty-nine  to  twenty- 
nine."  *     This  indicates  a  discussion  on  this  all-important 
subject ;  and  that  the  debate  was  more  than  usually  exciting 
may  be  inferred  from  the  decided  style  of  the  notice.     The 
vote  shows  that  the  old  unanimity  did  not  exist,  and  that 
the  House  was  getting  weary  of  the  dispute  which  was  led 
by  Mr.  Adams.     This  immovable  determination  on  the  one 
side,  and  a  desire  to  have  done  with  the  dispute  and  yield 
the  point  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  on  the  other,  continued 
into  the  next  year,  and  produced  unhappy  dissensions  in  the 
patriot  party,  —  the   stern   and  stanch  Whigs  siding  with 
Adams,  who  eventually  carried  his  point.     Samuel  Adams 
during  the  session  was  chairman  of  the  important  commit- 
tee "  to  consider  the  state  of  the  Province,"  of  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  had  been  the  leading  member  for  several 

*  Boston  Gazette  for  Oct.  15,  1770. 
vol.  i.  24 


370  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 

years.  His  name  also  appears  on  numerous  other  commit- 
tees in  connection  with  those  of  John  Adams,  James  Warren, 
Hawley,  Pickering,  Hancock,  Leonard,  Heath,  and  others, 
whom  Hutchinson  mentions  as  particularly  active  on  the 
popular  side.*  One  of  the  subjects  of  controversy  between 
the  House  and  the  Governor  was  the  use  of  the  words  "  in 
General  Court  assembled,"  which  the  House  declared  to 
be  necessary  to  render  effectual  the  acts  passed  by  that 
body.  His  Honor  took  exceptions,  and  the  principal  reply 
of  the  House,  which  was  written  by  John  Adams,  who  was 
chairman  of  the  committee,  conclusively  establishes  the 
legality  and  necessity  of  the  words. 

Soon  after  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Franklin,  a  long  and 
comprehensive  letter  of  instructions  was  prepared  by  Mr. 
Adams,  and  accepted  by  the  House,  denning  their  views  of 
the  condition  of  public  affairs.  His  original  draft,  from 
which  the  following  extracts  are  taken, f  is  dated  Nov.  6,  but 
probably  the  material  had  been  previously  arranged.  Ex- 
tending over  many  pages  of  manuscript,  it  embodies  all  the 
grievances  complained  of  in  previous  papers,  for  the  re- 
dress of  which  they  require  Franklin's  utmost  attention  and 
application.  The  subjects,  treated  at  great  length  and  in 
detail,  include  the  quartering  of  troops  on  the  people  in  a 
time  of  profound  peace,  and  the  establishment  of  an  uncon- 
trolled military  tyranny ;  the  policy  of  arbitrary  instruc- 
tions, violating  the  charter  of  the  Province ;  the  removal 
of  the  Legislature  from  Boston ;  the  secrecy  preserved  in 
relation  to  the  intended  measures  of  government,  as  ordered 
by  the  Ministry,  thus  preventing  the  Province  from  knowing 
who  were  their  accusers  or  what  was  alleged  against  them ; 
the  sending  to  England  of  false  relations  of  speeches  and 
proceedings  of  the  Assembly  under  the  Province  seal ;  the 
secret  examination  of  witnesses  against  the  people ;  and  the 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  338. 

t  The  letter  was  published,  with  slight  yariations,  in  the  Boston  Gazette, 
July  22,  1771.     See  Bancroft,  VI.  375. 


HO.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  371 

total  rescinding  of  some  of  the  most  essential  clauses  of  the 
charter,  which  "  must  soon  tear  up  the  very  foundation  of 
civil  government.' l 

The  enormous  extension  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Court 
of  Admiralty  is  also  considered,  whereby  "  the  most  unrea- 
sonable and  unjust  distinction  is  made  between  the  sub- 
jects in  Britain  and  America,  as  though  it  was  designed  to 
exclude  us  from  the  least  share  in  that  clause  of  Magna 
Charta  which  has  for  centuries  been  the  noblest  bulwark 
of  English  liberties,  and  which  cannot  be  too  often  repeated, 
'  No  freeman  shall  be  taken,  or  imprisoned,  or  deprived  of 
his  freehold,  or  liberties,  or  free  customs,  or  be  outlawed, 
or  exiled,  or  any  otherwise  destroyed,  nor  will  we  pass  upon 
him,  nor  condemn  him,  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers 
or  the  law  of  the  land.'  " 

The  threatened  bestowal  by  the  King  of  large  salaries  upon 
the  Attorney-General,  Judges,  and  Governor  of  the  Prov- 
ince, and  the  consequent  dependence  for  their  support  upon 
the  Ministry  instead  of  upon  the  people,  is  regarded  as  a 
grievance  still  more  aggravated  and  insupportable.  The  let- 
ter asserts  that  making  those  officers  independent  of  the 
Province  for  their  support  would  introduce  an  arbitrary 
administration  into  the  Province  and  even  into  the  courts 
of  law,  and  explains  how  "  the  Assembly  is  in  all  reason 
sufficiently  dependent  already  upon  the  Crown,"  to  prove 
which  the  course  of  provincial  law-making  is  fully  set  forth. 

"  Surely,"  continues  the  letter,  "  the  Parliament  cannot  even  wish 
for  greater  checks,  both  upon  the  legislative  and  executive  of  a 
Colony,  unless  we  are  to  be  considered  as  bastards  and  not  sons. 
A  step  further  will  reduce  us  to  an  absolute  subjection.  If  Admin- 
istration is  resolved  to  continue  such  measures  of  severity,  the  Col- 
onies will  in  time  consider  the  mother  state  as  utterly  regardless  of 
their  welfare.  Repeated  acts  of  unkindness  on  one  side  may,  by 
degrees,  abate  the  warmth  of  affection  on  the  other;  and  a  total 
alienation  may  succeed  to  that  happy  union,  harmony,  and  confi- 
dence which  had  before  always   subsisted  and  we  sincerely  wish 


372  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

may  always  subsist.  If  Great  Britain,  instead  of  treating  us  as 
their  fellow-subjects,  shall  aim  at  making  us  their  vassals  and  slaves, 
the  consequences  will  be  that,  although  our  merchants  have  receded 
from  their  non-importation  agreement,  yet  the  body  of  the  people 
will  vigorously  endeavor  to  become  independent  of  the  mother  coun- 
try for  their  supplies,  and,  sooner  than  she  may  be  aware  of  it,  may 
manufacture  for  themselves.  The  Colonies,  like  healthy  young  sons, 
may  have  hitherto  been  cheerfully  building  up  the  parent  state ;  and 
how  far  Great  Britain  will  be  affected,  if  they  should  be  rendered 
even  barely  useless  to  her,  is  an  object  which  we  conceive  is  at  this 
very  juncture  worth  the  attention  of  a  British  Parliament. 

"Your  own  acquaintance  with  this  Province,  and  your  well- 
known  warm  attachment  to  it,  will  lead  you  to  exert  all  your 
powers  in  its  defence  ;  and  as  the  Council  have  made  choice  of  Mr. 
Bollan  for  their  agent,  you  will  no  doubt  confer  with  him,  and 
concert  such  measures  as  will  promote  our  common  interest.  Your 
abilities  we  greatly  confide  in ;  but  if  you  shall  think  it  for  the 
advantage  of  the  Province  to  consult  with  and  employ  counsel 
learned  in  the  law,  the  importance  of  your  agency  will  be  a  motive 
sufficient  for  us  to  acquiesce  in  such  expense,  on  that  account,  as 
your  own  judgment  shall  dictate  to  you  to  be  necessary." 

Franklin  continued  to  serve  until  the  commencement  of 
the  coercive  measures  which  led  to  actual  hostilities  between 
the  two  countries,  lending  his  great  abilities  to  the  attain- 
ment of  conciliation  while  a  hope  of  such  a  result  could  be 
entertained,  and  suffering  with  equanimity  the  assaults  of 
falsehood  and  ribaldry.*  Hutchinson  afterwards  sent  the 
letter,  as  published  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  to  Pownall,  nam- 
ing Samuel  Adams  as  the  author,  and  denouncing  him  as 
the  "  all  in  all," — the  great  incendiary  leader  of  Boston.f 

The  next  step  after  the  election  of  an  agent  was  the  ap- . 
pointment  of  a  committee  of  correspondence  to  communicate 
with  him  and  with  the  Speakers  of  the  several  Assemblies.^. 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  490-499. 

t  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  late  in  July  or  early  in  August,  1771. 

J  Journal  of  the  House,  Nov.  7,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  373 

From  the  very  first  this  plan  of  joint  action  on  the  part  of 
the  Colonies  had  been  a  favorite  idea  with  Mr.  Adams.  In 
1764,  he  had  advised  a  united  application  for  the  redress  of 
grievances,  and  his  Circular  Letter  in  1768  was  a  repetition 
of  the  same  idea.  Bradford,  the  historian,  the  contemporary 
of  Adams,  says :  "  Mr.  Adams  procured  a  vote  that  the 
Speaker  should  correspond  with  agents  in  England  on  the 
subject  of  parliamentary  claims  to  legislate  for  the  Colo- 
nies ;  and  also  with  the  Legislative  Assemblies  of  the  other 
Colonies."  *  He  says  this  was  in  1768  ;  but  he  evidently 
refers  to  the  committee  now  under  consideration,  as  no  such 
corresponding  body  was  appointed  earlier.  The  conclusion 
that  Adams  originated  this  committee  is  favored  by  the  fact 
that  his  draft  of  the  letter  of  instructions  to  the  agent  was 
prepared  before  the  following  motion  creating  that  com- 
mittee was  made  in  the  House  :  — 

"Upon  motion,  ordered,  that  Mr.  Speaker,  Mr.  Hancock,  Mr. 
Hall,  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  and  Mr.  John  Adams  be  a  committee  of 
correspondence  to  communicate  such  intelligence  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  the  agent  and  others  in  Great  Britain,  and  also  to  the  Speak- 
ers of  the  several  Assemblies  through  the  continent,  or  to  such 
committee  of  correspondence  as  they  have  or  may  appoint.  Said 
committee  from  time  to  time  to  report  the  whole  of  their  corres- 
pondence to  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  to  confer  with  such 
committee  as  the  Honorable  Board  have  appointed  to  correspond 
with  their  agent,  as  far  as  they  shall  judge  it  necessary,  t 

The  only  other  letter  sent  to  Franklin  during  the  year 
was  written  on  the  17th  of  December,  and  was  acknowledged 
by  him  in  February,  1771 4  Even  if  the  plan  of  commu- 
nicating with  the  other  Assemblies  was  consummated,  none 
of  the  letters  have  been  preserved.     It  is  probable,  however, 

*  Alden  Bradford's  Biographical  Notices  of  Distinguished  Men  in  New 
England,  p.  22. 

t  Journal  of  the  House,  Nov.  7,  1770.  Barry's  Massachusetts,  II.  435. 
John  Adams's  Works,  II.  235. 

X  Franklin's  Works,  edited  by  Sparks,  VII.  501. 


374  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

that,  by  the  advice  of  some,  who  remembered  tne  resent- 
ment occasioned  by  the  Circular  Letter  of  1768,  this  part  of 
the  duty  was  not  discharged.  But  if  an  official  communica- 
tion was  thus  prevented,  Mr.  Adams  certainly  endeavored  to 
supply  the  omission  by  his  own  private  correspondence  with 
prominent  politicians  in  the  sister  Colonies  and  in  England, 
especially  since  the  non-importation  agreements  were  failing 
in  nearly  every  part  of  the  country.*  Throughout  1771,  the 
popular  cause  was  sustained  with  less  energy  than  at  any 
time  before,  and  government  had  sanguine  hopes  of  a  speedy 
pacification  of  America.  Hutchinson,  commenting  upon  the 
tendencies  of  this  committee,  says :  — 

"  Thus  the  Governor  was  wholly  excluded  from  the  share  which, 
by  the  Constitution,  was  assigned  him  in  all  acts  of  government. 
Both  Council  and  House  of  Representatives,  by  committees,  kept 
an  authority  in  being,  when,  by  prorogation  and  perhaps  dissolu- 
tion, their  own  powers  were  at  an  end.  Nothing  could  be  more  un- 
constitutional and  unwarrantable.  It  was  not  in  the  power  of  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  to  prevent  such  votes  of  Council  or  House. 
They  passed  suddenly,  without  previous  notice  of  the  intention. 
Government  in  England  might  well  be  alarmed.  The  Governor 
was  instructed  not  to  consent  to  any  votes  for  paying  such  agents 
for  their  services,  and  when  their  appointments  were  offered  to  be 
registered  at  the  public  offices  they  were  refused.  They  appeared, 
notwithstanding,  as  agents,  were  heard  and  attended  to  on  many 
occasions."  f 

This  was  the  first  committee  of  correspondence  appointed 
in  America,  and  set  the  example  for  that  extraordinary  sys- 
tem, which  was  eventually  to  organize  the  continent  for 
resistance,  and  after  the  Be  volution  was  imitated  in  Eng- 
land for  the  redress  of  grievances.  J 

*  New  York  alone  until  now  had  been  perfectly  true  to  its  engagement. 
Bancroft,  VI.  365. 

t  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  318.  For  Samuel  Adams's  proceedings,  in 
relation  to  a  special  agency  for  a  limited  term,  proposed  by  the  Governor,  see 
Hutchinson  to  Lord  Dartmouth,  October,  1773,  Chap.  XXVII.  post. 

X  Francis  Dana  to  Elbridge  Gerry,  Paris,  Feb.  26,  1780.     John  to  Samuel 


1770.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  375 

"  Our  House  of  Representatives,"  wrote  Mr.  Adams  to  a  friend 
in  South  Carolina,  "  have  appointed  a  committee  to  correspond  with 
our  friends  in  the  other  Colonies,  and  American  manufactures 
should  be  the  constant  theme."  * 

Shortly  before  the  adjournment,  the  House  made  one 
more  effort,  through  a  committee  of  which  Samuel  Adams 
was  chairman,  to  draw  the  Lieutenant-Governor  forth  from 
his  determined  silence  on  the  surrender  of  the  Castle ;  but 
his  Honor  gave  them  no  satisfactory  reply,  and  the  subject 
was  not  renewed.  Almost  the  last  act  of  the  session  was  to 
address  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  through  a  committee  of 
which  Samuel  Adams  was  chairman,  desiring  his  Honor  to 
place  the  militia  on  a  better  footing,  to  fill  the  vacancies  in 
the  several  regiments,  and  revive  military  discipline.!  A 
bill  to  that  effect  was  objected  to  by  Hutchinson,  and  the 
Legislature  was  then  adjourned  to  the  next  spring. 

Mr.  Adams's  means  of  obtaining  information  were  not 
limited  to  America,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  following  extract 
from  a  letter  received  by  him,  about  this  time,  from  the  hon- 
est-hearted and  patriotic  London  banker,  Stephen  Sayre,  af- 
terwards elected  Sheriff  of  London  by  the  supporters  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights.^ 

"  My  worthy  friend,  Mr.  Richard  Gary,  advises  me  that  he  has 
reason  to  believe  that  you  would  not  be  displeased  with  such  intel- 
ligence as  I  might  sometimes  give  you  relative  to  public  affairs,  and 
confirms  me  in  my  former  opinion,  that  you  highly  deserve  the  con- 
fidence of  every  friend  to  liberty.  I  have  already  done  myself  the 
honor  of  addressing  you  as  the  Father  of  America ;  and  if  you  wish 
to  know  the  most  secret  transactions  of  your  enemies  here,  I  shall 

Adams,  Paris,  Feb.  23,  1780.  Sparks's  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  III.  383. 
J.  T.  Austin's  Life  of  Gerry,  I.  299,  300. 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Peter  Timothy,  Nov.  21,  1770. 

t  The  original  draft  of  this  and  the  preceding  paper  are  preserved  in  the 
hand-writing  of  Samuel  Adams.     Bradford's  State  Papers,  pp.  287  -  289. 

f  Arthur  Lee  to  Samuel  Adams,  June  23,  1773.  For  facts  relative  to  Mr. 
Sayre,  who  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  see  W.  B.  Reed's  Biography  of  Joseph 
Beed,  I.  27  j  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  325. 


376  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov.,  Dec. 

be  proud  of  the  opportunity  to  inform  you  in  every  particular  as 
soon  as  matters  transpire.  I  shall  never  deceive  you  in  matters  of 
fact,  or  hint  suspicions  without  the  best  foundation. "  * 

To  this  Mr.  Adams  replied :  — 

"The  people  here  are  indeed  greatly  tenacious  of  their  rights, 
and  I  hope  in  God  they  will  ever  firmly  maintain  them.  Every 
attempt  to  enforce  the  plan  of  despotism  will  certainly  irritate  them. 
While  they  have  a  sense  of  freedom,  they  will  oppose  the  efforts  of 
tyranny  ;  and  although  the  mother  country  may  at  present  boast  of 
their  superiority  over  them,  she  may  perhaps  find  the  want  of  that  su- 
periority when,  by  repeated  provocations,  she  shall  have  totally  lost 
their  affections.  All  good  men  surely  wish  for  a  candid  harmony  be- 
tween the  two  countries.  Great  Britain  can  lose  nothing  which  she 
ought  to  retain  by  restoring  the  Americans  to  their  former  state, 
and  they,  I  am  satisfied,  will  no  further  contend.  While  the  struggle 
continues,  manufactures  will  still  increase  in  America,  in  spite  of  all 
efforts  to  prevent  it ;  and  how  far  Great  Britain  will  be  injured  by 
it  ought  certainly  to  be  considered  on  your  side  of  the  Atlantic." 

To  the  same  person,  a  week  later,  he  says  of  Hutchinson :  — 

"  Aut  CcBsar,  aut  nuttus,  is  inscribed  on  the  heads  of  some  men 
who  have  neither  Caesar's  learning  nor  courage.  Caesar  three  times 
refused  the  crown ;  his  heart  and  his  tongue  evidently  gave  each 
other  the  lie.  Our  modern  great  man  would  fain  have  it  thought 
that  he  has  refused  a  government  which  his  soul  is  every  day  pant- 
ing after,  and  without  the  possession  of  which  his  ambition  and  lust 
of  power  will  perpetually  torment  him.  It  has  been  his  principle 
from  a  boy,  that  mankind  are  to  be  governed  by  the  discerning  few, 
and  it  has  been  ever  since  his  ambition  to  be  the  hero  of  the  few. 

"  It  is  the  business  of  America  to  take  care  of  herself;  her  situa- 
tion, as  you  justly  observe,  depends  upon  her  own  virtue.  Arts  and 
manufactures,  aided  by  commerce,  have  raised  Great  Britain  to  its 
present  pitch  of  grandeur.  America  will  avail  herself  of  imitating 
her.  We  have  already  seen  her  happy,  and,  as  we  have  a  prospect 
of  war,  I  hope  I  may  safely  tell  you  that  our  young  men  begin  to 
be  ambitious  of  making  themselves  perfect  masters  of  the  art  mili- 

*  Stephen  Sayre  to  Samuel  Adams,  Sept.  18,  1770. 


1770.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  377 

tart/.  Amidst  the  innumerable  evils  which  we  complain  of  from 
the  bad  policy  of  your  Ministry,  this  is  the  happy  effect  of  Britain's 
transplanting  arms  into  America.  "  * 

Into  whatever  insignificance  John  Wilkes  might  have 
sunk,  had  he  not  been  buoyed  above  obscurity  by  perse- 
cution, he  was  at  this  time  the  embodiment  of  constitu- 
tional liberty  in  England.  Disfranchised  without  color  of 
law,  burdened  with  fines,  and  outlawed,  he  yet  held  in  his 
keeping  the  principles  of  representative  government.  He 
had  at  the  close  of  1770  so  far  triumphed  as  to  be  elected 
an  alderman,  and  the  sturdy  Londoners  considered  him  as 
their  political  champion,  and  by  their  support  expressed  an 
honest  abhorrence  of  titled  tyranny.  In  America,  the  name 
of  Wilkes,  surrounded  by  the  halo  of  patriotism,  was  the  fa- 
vorite toast.  The  enthusiasm  felt  for  him,  if  less  excited 
than  in  England,  was  equally  deep  seated.  He  was  shortly 
to  become  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  and  was  now  the  most 
conspicuous  person  in  the  kingdom ;  and  viewing  his  posi- 
tion from  this  stand-point,  he  was  truly  a  representative 
man.  A  people,  seeing  their  dearest  privileges  trampled 
under  foot,  had  rallied  to  the  support  of  their  liberties 
struck  down  in  him.  The  following  letter  from  Samuel 
Adams  expresses  the  sympathy  felt  in  America  for  the 
principles  supported  in  the  person  of  Wilkes. 

Boston,  Dec.  27,  1770. 
Sir, — 

Having  been  repeatedly  solicited  by  my  friend,  Mr.  W.  P.,  I 

embrace  this  opportunity  of  making  my  particular  compliments  to 

you  in  a  letter  which  he  will  deliver.     My  own  inclination  has 

coincided  with  his  request;  for  I  should  pride  myself  much  in  a 

correspondence  with  a  gentleman  of  whom  I  have  long  entertained 

so  great  an  opinion.     No  character  appears  with  a  stronger  lustre 

in  my  mind,  than  that  of  a  man  who  nobly  perseveres  in  the  cause 

of  public  liberty  and  virtue  through  the  rage  of  persecution.     Of 

this  you  have  had  a  large  portion,  but  I  dare  say  you  are  made 

*  To  Stephen  Sayre,  Nov.  16  and  23,  1770. 


378  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

better  by  it ;  at  least,  I  will  venture  to  say  that  the  sharpest  perse- 
cution for  the  sake  of  one's  country  can  never  prove  a  real  injury  to 
an  honest  man. 

In  this  little  part  of  the  world,  late  happy  in  its  obscurity,  the 
elysium  to  which  patriots  were  formerly  wont  to  make  their  peace- 
ful retreat,  even  here  the  stern  tyrant  has  of  late  lifted  up  his  iron 
rod,  and  he  makes  his  incessant  claim  as  lord  of  our  soil.  But  I 
have  a  firm  persuasion  in  my  mind,  that  in  every  struggle  this 
country  will  approve  herself  as  glorious  in  defending  and  maintain- 
ing her  freedom  as  she  has  heretofore  been  happy  in  enjoying  it. 

Were  I  a  native  and  an  inhabitant  of  Britain,  and  capable  of 
affording  the  least  advice,  it  would  be  to  confirm  the  Colonists  in 
the  fullest  exercise  of  their  rights,  and  even  to  explore  for  them 
every  possible  avenue  of  trade  which  should  not  interfere  with  her 
own  manufactures.  From  the  Colonies,  when  she  is  worn  with  age, 
she  is  to  expect  renewed  strength.  But  the  field  I  am  now  enter- 
ing is  too  large  for  the  present.  May  Heaven  forbid  that  it  should 
yet  be  truly  said  of  Great  Britain,  Quern  Deus  vult  perdere,  &c. ! 
I  am,  with  strict  truth,  sir, 

Your  most  humble  servant, 

Samuel  Adams. 
To  John  Wilkes,  Esq. 

No  reply  to  this  letter  has  ever  been  found,  and  it  is 
likely  that  none  was  written.  Though  Wilkes  pretended  to 
the  deepest  admiration  of  the  Americans,  —  "  the  courage 
and  noble  spirit  of  our  American  brethren,"  to  use  his 
own  words,  —  he  cared  nothing  for  their  interests ;  and,  it 
would  appear  from  Stephens's  Life  of  Home  Tooke,  actually 
hated  and  despised  them.* 

There  seemed  to  be  now  "  a  pause  in  politics,"  f  and  the 
Province  remained  in  the  same  unusual  state  of  quietude 
when  the  new  year  opened.  The  non-importation  agree- 
ments, as  we  have  seen,  were  at  an  end,  though  an  almost 
universal  desire  to  encourage  home  industry,  in  accordance 
with  a  resolution  passed  by  the  last  Assembly,  prevailed 

*  See  Grahame's  History,  II.  439. 

t  Samuel  Cooper  to  Dr.  Franklin,  Jan.  1,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  379 

among  tne  towns.  Meetings  of  the  wives  and  daughters  of 
the  yeomanry,  where  a  generous  rivalry  was  manifested  to 
excel  in  spinning  skeins  of  yarn,  were  common ;  while  for 
the  forbidden  tea  was  substituted  an  herb  of  home  growth, 
which  came  into  general  use.*  Preston's  trial  was  over ;  and 
Mr.  Adams,  as  "  Vindex,"  nearly  alone  occupied  the  field 
of  the  Boston  Gazette,  in  a  long-continued  controversy  with 
Sewall,  as  "  Philanthropy '  in  the  loyalist  paper.  Hutchin- 
son attributed  the  quiet  to  the  late  changing  of  the  garrison 
at  Castle  William,  which  had  evidently,  he  said,  produced  a 
great  effect  upon  the  people. f  To  a  friend  in  England  he 
wrote :  — 

'  "  You  wish  to  hear  how  our  affairs  stand  from  time  to  time.  We 
have  not  been  so  quiet  these  five  years.  Our  incendiaries  of  the 
lower  order  have  quite  disappeared.  A  Doctor  Young,  whose  name 
has  often  appeared  in  the  newspapers,  has  taken  passage  for  North 
Carolina.  He  may  have  a  chance  among  the  *  Regulators'  there. 
I  hope  many  of  the  most  flaming  zealots  who  have  been  at  the  head 
of  affairs  see  their  mistake.  They  say  that  this  change  will  divert 
Parliament  from  showing  resentment  for  past  offences.  I  tell  them 
that  it  may  cause  a  more  moderate  chastisement,  but  that  it  is  im- 
possible they  should  wholly  escape." 

And  a  few  days  later,  he  says :  — 

"  The  people  about  the  country  have  certainly  altered  their  con- 
duct, and  in  this  town,  if  it  were  not  for  two  or  three  Adamses, 
we  should  do  well  enough.  I  don't  know  how  to  account  for  the 
obstinacy  of  one  [John  Adams],  who  seemed  to  me,  when  he  began 
life,  to  promise  well.  The  other  [Samuel  Adams]  never  appeared 
different  from  what  he  does  at  present,  and,  I  fear,  never  will. 
The  name  of '  Vindex,'  which  he  has  assumed,  is  characteristic ;  but, 
as  it  is  the  custom  now  for  people  to  give  their  children  two  or  three 
names,  I  could  wish  he  would  add  ■  Malignus '  and  '  Invidus,'  to 
make  his  names  a  little  more  significative."  $ 

*  Boston  newspapers.     Barry's  Massachusetts,  II.  436. 

t  Hutchinson  to  a  person  unknown. 

t  Hutchinson  to  Thomas  Whately,  Jan.  25,  1771. 


380  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March, 

Hutchinson,  who  had  been  anxiously  vibrating  between 
hope  and  fear,  now  received  his  commission  as  Governor  of 
the  Province,  and  his  brother-in-law,  Andrew  Oliver,  who 
had  been  Stamp  Dfstributor  in  1765,  and  was  forced  by  the 
populace  to  resign,  succeeded  to  the  Lieutenancy.*  The 
appointments,  as  might  have  been  expected,  gave  great  of- 
fence ;  yet,  considering  the  zeal  in  a  bad  cause  which  Hutch- 
inson had  displayed,  the  Ministry  could  scarcely  have  chosen 
another  man,  or  one  more  fitted  to  consummate  their  appar- 
ent desire  to  exasperate  the  people.  Hutchinson,  who  had 
reached  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  the  highest  office  he  could 
attain  in  America,  was  delighted  beyond  measure  with  his 
honors ;  and  very  soon  the  Episcopal  clergy  of  Boston,  who, 
were  all  loyalists,  waited  upon  him  with  congratulatory  ad- 
dresses.! Those  of  some  Congregational  ministers  were  of 
an  opposite  tenor,  the  writers  probably  feeling  that  if  the 
occasion  demanded  any  notice  at  their  hands  it  was  to  show 
that  they  and  their  churches  disapproved  of  the  appoint- 
ment. J  Hutchinson,  having  written  to  the  Earl  of  Dun 
more  in  acknowledgment  of  the  receipt  of  his  Majesty's 
commission  appointing  him  "  Captain  General  and  Governor- 
in-chief  of  this  his  Majesty's  Province,"  turned  to  the  duties 
of  his  high  office,  and  looked  forward  to  a  brilliant  and  suc- 
cessful administration.  He  wrote  to  General  Gage  in  New 
York,  informing  him  of  his  appointment,  and  desiring  to 
cultivate  correspondence  and  harmony.  The  rumor,  which 
afterwards  proved  to  be  well-founded,  that  the  Governor  was 
to  receive  his  support  directly  from  the  Crown,  had  for  some 
time  been  in  circulation.  The  charter,  wisely  guarding  the 
liberties  of  the  little  democratic  communities,  provided  that 
the  Governor  should  rely  for  his  salary  exclusively  upon 
the  free  grants  of  the  Assembly ;  and  the  dangerous  prece- 
dent had  been  already  pointed  out  to  Franklin,  in  the  letter 

*  The  commissions  are  published  in  the  Boston  papers  for  March  14,  1771. 
t  Boston  Gazette,  March  18,  1771. 
J  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  334. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  381 

of  the  House,  as  one  of  the  grievances  to  be  brought  before 
the  Ministry.  Just  as  the  packet  was  sailing  for  England, 
Mr.  Adams  enclosed  in  another  letter  a  few  hasty  lines  to 
Stephen  Sayre  on  the  subject. 

Boston,  Jan.  12,  1771. 
Sir,— 
I  wrote  you  per  Captain  Hall,  who  sailed  about  ten  days  ago, 
and  then  enclosed  some  papers,  published  in  the  Boston  Gazette, 
upon  the  subject  of  the  late  trial  of  the  soldiers.  I  now  send  you 
duplicates,  together  with  others  on  the  same  subject  since  published. 
I  perceive  that  Mr.  Hutchinson  is  appointed  Governor  here,  and  it 
is  said  he  is  to  have  an  independent  salary  !  Is  not  this  perfect  des- 
potism ?  "What  can  the  people  of  Britain  mean  by  suffering  their 
great  men  to  enslave  their  fellow-subjects  ?  Can  they  think  that 
the  plan  is  confined  to  America  ?  They  will  surely  find  themselves 
mistaken. 

I  am,  in  haste,  sir,  your  assured  friend, 

Sam.  Adams. 
Stephen  Saybe,  Esq. 

On  the  5th  of  March,  the  first  anniversary  of  the  Boston 
Massacre  was  celebrated  in  a  manner  calculated  to  impress 
the  people  with  the  events  of  that  memorable  occasion.  The 
bells  were  tolled  at  noon  and  evening  ;  and,  after  dark,  fig- 
ures to  represent  the  slain  were  exhibited  from  a  window  in 
the  north  part  of  the  town.*  During  the  day,  the  younger 
Lovell,  Usher  of  the  Grammar-School,  delivered  an  oration 
at  the  Old  South  Church.  Mr.  Adams  was  this  year  on  the 
town's  committee  to  arrange  for  future  celebrations.  His 
exertions  on  a  larger  scale  did  not  prevent  him  from  serving 
with  Hancock  and  others  of  the  leading  patriots  as  Selectman, 
School  Examiner,  Fire  Warden,  and  in  other  similar  offices,  f 

About  this  time  the  town  received  a  letter  from  the  cele- 
brated Irish  patriot,  Dr.  Lucas  of  Dublin,  in  answer  to  one 
sent  him  by  the  committee  appointed  in  the  previous  year 

*  Boston  Gazette,  March  11,  1771.     Hutchinson,  III.  335. 

t  Boston  Town  Becords  for  1771 ;  and  Boston  Gazette,  March  25,  1771. 


382  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March,  April, 

to  transmit  the  account  of  the  Massacre  to  Europe.  It  was 
read  in  the  town  meeting  on  the  18th  of  March  ;  and  though 
no  copy  of  it  can  be  found,  its  tenor  may  be  gathered  from 
the  short  sketch  in  the  Gazette. 

"  The  Doctor  sympathizes  with  his  American  fellow-sufferers,  and 
enumerates  so  many  and  audacious  instances  of  military  barbarity, 
insolence,  and  unbounded  licentiousness  as  demonstrates  that  law 
is  indeed  the  will  of  the  Ministry  for  that  kingdom.  He  laments 
the  ignorant  difference  in  religion,  and  consequent  want  of  unanim- 
ity in  the  people,  which  renders  them  an  easy  prey  to  any  kind  of 
forces  that  would  enslave  them ;  professes  a  high  esteem  for  America, 
and  still  hopes  the  unanimous  efforts  of  her  wise  and  virtuous  chil- 
dren will  have  much  effect  towards  a  general  restoration  of  consti- 
tutional liberty."  * 

Dr.  Lucas  seems  greatly  to  have  resembled  Samuel  Adams 
in  certain  traits  of  character  and  in  the  circumstances  of  his 
life.  He  was  known  as  an  effective  political  writer,  conduct- 
ing the  Freeman's  Journal  in  Dublin,  to  which  Yelverton, 
Flood,  Grattan,  and  other  distinguished  men  were  contribu- 
tors. From  his  first  entrance  into  the  political  arena,  no 
promises  nor  offers  could  seduce  him  from  the  cause  of  the 
people,  which  he  maintained  with  inflexible  energy  until  his 
death.  He  was  a  man  of  remarkable  powers  and  ceaseless 
activity,  taking  the  lead  in  watching  and  defending  the  civil 
liberties  of  the  nation.  In  October,  1761,  while  in  the  Irish 
Parliament,  he  was  one  of  a  committee  which  brought  in  a 
bill  to  limit  the  duration  of  Parliament,  —  a  favorite  and 
constitutional  measure  which  he  had  recommended.  The 
Parliament  of  Ireland,  unlike  that  of  Great  Britain,  contin 
ued  in  existence  until  dissolved  by  the  death  of  the  monarch. 
It  was  the  desire  of  Lucas  to  imitate  the  English  Septennial 
Bill,  but  at  first  the  effort  failed,  much  to  the  regret  of  the 
people,  who  were  earnest  for  its  success.  In  1767,  however, 
an  octennial  bill  was  passed.f     During  the  session  of  1771, 

*  Boston  Gazette,  March  25,  1771. 

t  Plowden's  Ireland,  London,  1809,  8<>,  H  144,  155. 


1771.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  383 

Dr.  Lucas  died ;  and,  in  consideration  of  his  distinguished 
patriotism,  the  University  of  Dublin,  at  the  request  of  the 
Corporation,  provided  an  apartment  and  commons  in  the  Col- 
lege for  the  gratuitous  education  of  his  son.  That  he  was 
known  and  appreciated  in  Boston  may  be  inferred  from  the 
letter  sent  him  after  the  Massacre,  and  by  the  appellation  of 
"  the  famous  Dr.  Lucas  "  in  the  Gazette.  The  town  appointed 
a  committee  to  reply  to  his  letter ;  which  explains  the  fol- 
lowing draft  by  Samuel  Adams,  found  among  his  papers :  — 

Boston,  1771. 
Sir,  — 

Your  letter  of  the  1st  of  September  has  been  laid  before  the 
town  of  Boston  at  their  annual  meeting,  and  attended  to  with  great 
satisfaction  ;  and  we  are  appointed  a  committee  to  return  you  a  re- 
spectful answer  Accordingly,  we  take  this  opportunity,  in  behalf 
of  the  town,  to  acknowledge  the  kind  sentiments  your  letter  ex- 
presses towards  us,  and  to  entreat  you  to  employ  your  abilities  for 
our  advantage  whenever  a  favorable  opportunity  may  present.  "We 
are  very  sensible  that  you  have  an  arduous  task  in  resisting  the  tor- 
rent of  oppression  and  arbitrary  power  in  Ireland,  a  kingdom  where 
the  brutal  power  of  standing  armies  and  the  more  fatal  influence  of 
pensions  and  places  has  left,  it  is  to  be  feared,  hardly  anything  more 
than  the  name  of  a  free  constitution.  We  wish  you  strength  and  for- 
titude to  persevere  in  patriotic  exertions.  Your  labor  will  meet 
with  its  immediate  and  instant  reward,  in  the  most  peaceful  and 
happy  reflections  of  your  own  mind,  amidst  the  greatest  discourage- 
ments ;  and  be  assured  that  the  man  who  nobly  vindicates  the 
rights  of  his  country  and  mankind  shall  stand  foremost  in  the  list  of 

fame. 

We  are,  &c, 

To  Dr.  Lucas,  Dublin. 

Early  in  April  the  General  Court  met  at  Cambridge,  when 
Governor  Hutchinson  officially  informed  the  House  of  his 
appointment,  and  intimated  his  desire  "  to  join  cheerfully  at 
all  times  with  the  other  branches  of  the  Legislature  in  such 
measures  as  may  tend  completely  to  restore  and  constantly 


384  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

to  maintain  that  state  of  order  and  tranquillity  upon  which 
the  prosperity  of  the  Province  so  much  depends."  The 
House,  however,  had  in  mind  a  subject  which  was  deemed 
of  more  importance  than  the  exchange  of  hollow  felicita- 
tions. They  sent  to  his  Excellency  a  verbal  message  on  the 
first  day  of  the  session,  requesting  him  to  remove  the  Gen- 
eral Court  to  its  ancient  and  usual  seat,  the  Town-House  in 
Boston,  and  in  a  few  days  the  message  was  repeated.  The 
Governor  refused  in  a  brief  reply,  stating  that  one  of  the 
obstructions  to  the  desired  removal  was  the  denial  by  the 
House  of  the  right  reserved  by  the  Crown  to  convene  the 
Court  in  such  place  as  was  thought  proper.  "  If  every  other 
impediment,' '  he  continues,  "  was  out  of  the  way,  whilst  you 
continue  to  urge  that,  by  law,  the  Court  must  be  held  in 
Boston,  I  may  not  ask  his  Majesty's  leave  to  carry  you  there. 
I  should  give  up  to  the  House  of  Representatives  a  right 
which  would  have  remained  in  the  Crown,  if  no  notice  had 
been  taken  of  it  in  the  charter."  * 

Samuel  Adams  was  chairman  of  the  committee  appointed 
to  reply ;  and  two  drafts,  differing  but  slightly,  are  extant  in 
his  handwriting.  The  answer,  which  was  to  both  speeches, 
was  not  reported  until  nearly  three  weeks  had  elapsed. 
What  debates  occurred  in  the  interval,  or  what  opposition 
was  shown  to  the  adoption  of  the  report,  or  by  whom,  can 
never  be  known,  though  the  proceedings  of  the  summer 
session  throw  an  inferential  light  on  the  subject.  In  his 
opening  speech,  the  Governor  had  alluded  to  the  late  aggres- 
sion to  which  Spain  had  been  prompted,  in  conformity  with 
her  treaty  with  France,  to  commence  hostilities  against  Eng- 
land, —  the  very  danger  Samuel  Adams  had  foreseen  more 
than  a  year  before.  In  the  midst  of  peace,  a  Spanish  force 
from  Buenos  Ayres  had  violently  dispossessed  the  English 
of  their  settlement  at  Port  Egremont  in  the  Falkland  Isl- 
ands. A  war  seemed  probable,  and  the  Earl  of  Hillsbor- 
ough had  written  to  Hutchinson  that,  in  such  case,  a  plan 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  April  5,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  385 

of  augmentation  of  his  Majesty's  forces  in  America  liad  been 
determined  upon ;  and  the  Governor  thereupon  issued  his 
proclamation  to  that  effect.  But,  as  he  had  hinted  in  his 
speech,  that  it  was  probable  satisfaction  might  have  been 
made,  the  House  quietly  informed  him  that  the  plan  of 
augmentation  had  been  receded  from,  which  rendered  any 
further  consideration  of  the  subjeet  on  their  part  unneces- 
sary. It  is  certain  that  any  effort  to  raise  troops  in  Massa- 
chusetts to  fight  the  battles  of  Britain  would  now  have  been 
futile.  Nor  would  the  House  have  voted  for  any  increase 
of  the  royal  forces  in  the  Province,  especially  after  the 
contemptuous  silence  Hutchinson  had  preserved  during  the 
last  session  on  their  application  for  a  reorganization  of  the 
militia.  The  spirit  which,  thirteen  years  before,  had  planted 
the  British  flag  in  triumph  on  the  ramparts  of  Louisburg, 
had  conquered  Canada,  and  added  lustre  to  the  national 
arms,  was  fast  fading  before  the  mercenary,  thankless  policy 
of  the  government.  This  threatened  quarrel  with  Spain, 
though  followed  by  an  equivocal  apology  from  the  aggres- 
sors, averting  hostilities,  should  have  warned  British  politi- 
cians of  the  dangers  which  menaced  their  commerce,  and  the 
possible  calamities  which  might  result  from  a  continued 
exasperation  of  three  millions  of  loyal  and  faithful  subjects.* 
But  a  stubborn  determination  to  crush  out  all  opposition, 
to  see  "  America  prostrate  at  their  feet,"  blinded  the  gov- 
ernment to  all  other  considerations.  Their  pride,  aroused 
by  opposition,  would  not  permit  them  to  abandon  the  head- 
strong assertion  of  an  erroneous  principle  to  which  King 
and  Ministry  were  alike  committed.  Meanwhile  the  states- 
men of  rival  powers  looked  on  with  amazement  and  secret 
pleasure. 

"  We  owe  our  gratitude,"  continues  the  answer  to  the  Governor, 
"  to  his  Majesty  for  his  repeated  assurances  expressed  to  your  Excel- 
lency by  the  Secretary  of  State,  that  the  security  of  his  dominions 

*  Compare  Samuel  Adams  to  Deberdt,  Nov.  6,  1769,  ante,  p.  289. 
vol.  I.  25 


386  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

in  America  will  be  a  principal  object  of  his  most  gracious  care  and 
attention.  This  Province  has  frequently  in  times  past  expended 
much  blood  and  treasure  for  the  enlargement  as  well  as  support  of 
those  dominions.  And  when  our  natural  and  constitutional  rights 
and  liberties,  without  which  no  blessing  can  be  secured  to  us,  shall 
be  fully  restored  and  established  upon  a  firm  foundation,  as  we 
shall  then  have  the  same  reasons  and  motives  therefor  as  heretofore, 
we  shall  not  fail  to  continue  those  exertions  with  the  utmost  cheer- 
fulness and  to  the  extent  of  our  ability. 

"  As  your  Excellency  has  no  particular  interior  business  of  the 
Province  to  lay  before  us,  it  would  have  given  us  no  uneasiness  if 
an  end  had  been  put  to  the  present  Assembly,  rather  than  to  have 
been  called  to  this  place ;  and  we  are  unwilling  to  admit  the  belief 
that  when  the  season  for  calling  a  new  Assembly,  agreeable  to  the 
charter,  shall  arrive,  your  Excellency  will  continue  an  indignity  and 
a  grievance  so  flagrant,  and  so  repeatedly  remonstrated  by  both 
Houses,  as  the  deforcement  of  the  General  Assembly  of  its  ancient 
and  rightful  seat." 

The  answer  then  glances  at  the  Governor's  announcement 
of  his  appointment,  and  reminding  him  of  his  birth  and 
education  in  the  Province,  where  his  fellow-subjects  had  for 
many  years  bestowed  upon  him  the  highest  honors  in  their 
gift,  represents  that  as  a  motive  for  him  to  employ  his 
powers  for  his  Majesty's  real  service  and  the  best  interests 
of  the  people. 

"The  duties  of  the  governor  and  the  governed  are  reciprocal; 
and  by  our  happy  Constitution  their  dependence  is  mutual.  Noth- 
ing can  more  effectually  produce  and  establish  that  order  and  tran- 
quillity in  the  Province  so  often  disturbed  under  the  late  unfortunate 
administration,  nothing  will  tend  more  to  conciliate  the  affections  of 
this  people,  and  insure  to  your  Excellency  those  aids  which  you 
will  constantly  stand  in  need  of  from  their  representatives,  than,  as 
a  wise  and  faithful  administrator,  '  to  make  use  of  the  public  power 
with  a  view  only  to  the  public  welfare.'  And  while  your  Excellency 
shall  religiously  regard  the  Constitution  of  this  Province ;  while 
you  shall  maintain  its  fundamental  laws,  so  necessary  to  secure  the 
public  tranquillity,  —  you  may  be  assured  that  his  Majesty's  faithful 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  387 

Commons  of  this  Province  will  never  be  wanting  in  their  utmost 
exertions  to  support  you  in  all  such  measures  as  shall  be  calculated 
for  the  public  good  and  to  render  your  administration  prosperous 
and  happy."* 

The  Governor  soon  after  manifested  his  disapproval  of  the 
words,  "  his  Majesty's  Commons,"  by  which  he  supposed 
they  must  intend  the  House  of  Representatives.!  In  his 
History  he  twice  refers  to  this  change  in  the  style  of  the 
House,  which  accorded  with  the  language  of  the  newspapers, 
and  was  intended,  as  he  correctly  surmised,  to  give  more  im- 
portance to  that  branch  as  a  supreme,  independent  legisla- 
tive power.  "  Mr.  Adams's  attention  to  the  cause  in  which 
he  was  engaged,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  would  not  suffer  him 
to  neglect  even  small  circumstances  which  could  be  made 
subservient  to  it.  From  this  attention,  in  four  or  five  years, 
a  great  change  had  been  made  in  the  language  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly."  J  The  Governor  then  enumerates  some  of 
the  instances  where  Adams  had  used  the  knife  freely  on 
such  of  the  forms  of  expression  previously  used  in  legislative 
documents  as  appeared  to  sanction  the  assumption  of  au- 
thority by  Parliament  in  matters  purely  relating  to  the 
internal  affairs  of  the  Province.  These  verbal  changes, 
emanating  from  the  shrewd  political  manager,  are  apparent 
in  most  of  the  state  papers  from  1767  to  the  close  of  the 
royal  government  in  the  Province. 

But  a  more  important  and  alarming  topic  than  any  that 
had  yet  appeared  now  presented  itself.  Mr.  Adams  had 
already  received  information,  by  private  letters  from  Eng- 
land, of  the  intended  payment  of  the  Governor's  salary  by 
the  Crown,  instead  of  by  the  free  grants  of  the  people.  The 
letter  to  Franklin,  in  the  previous  year,  had  touched  upon 
this  subject ;  and  among  the  earliest  business  of  this  session 

*  Original  drafts  by  Samuel  Adams.  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  296. 
Journal  of  the  House,  April  24,  1771. 

t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  299.     Hutchinson,  III.  337. 
}  Hutchinson,  HI.  413. 


383  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April,  1771. 

was  the  passage  of  the  bills  granting  the  usual  sums  for  the 
Governor's  salary  and  to  carry  on  the  public  affairs.  When 
three  weeks  had  passed,  upon  inquiry  of  the  Secretary  of 
the  Province,  it  did  not  appear  that  the  Governor  had  ap- 
proved of  the  bills ;  and  as  a  similar  one  had  been  neglected 
during  the  previous  session,  the  House,  in  a  message  written 
by  Samuel  Adams,  desired  an  explanation,  being  apprehen- 
sive, they  stated,  that  the  Governor  was  acting  under  some 
restraint,  and  that  provision  had  been  made  for  his  official 
salary  independent  of  the  Assembly.*  Hutchinson  gave  an 
evasive  reply,  saying  that  he  should  assent  to  or  reject  the 
bills,  as  it  should  appear  to  him  his  duty  required,  and 
thereupon  prorogued  the  Assembly.! 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  298.     Autograph  drafts  by  Samuel  Adams. 
t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  299. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

The  Spirit  of  Opposition  subsides.  —  Counsels  of  the  Moderate  Party.  —  John 
Adams  retires  from  the  Cause.  —  Otis  is  jealous  of  Samuel  Adams,  and  re- 
tards Public  Measures.  —  Adams  stands  alone.  — He  is  opposed  by  Hancock 
and  Otis,  who  for  a  while  carry  the  House.  —  Painful  Position  of  Adams.  — 
His  Brotherly  Care  for  Otis.  —  Exultation  of  the  Loyalists.  —  He  turns  to 
the  Press  to  stem  the  Tide.  —  He  prepares  a  Protest  against  holding  the 
Session  at  Cambridge,  and  at  last  secures  its  Passage  in  the  House.  —  Han- 
cock and  his  Party  for  a  while  silenced.  —  Adams  drafts  a  Letter  of  Instruc- 
tions from  the  House  to  Dr.  Franklin.  —  The  Governor  denounces  Adams 
as  the  Director  and  Principal  Incendiary. 

There  was  an  interval  of  about  a  fortnight  between  the 
prorogation  and  the  May  elections  for  the  Legislature.  The 
political  heats  had  subsided,  and  public  affairs  were  discussed 
with  unusual  moderation.  Hutchinson,  a  close  observer  of 
every  event,  says  that  he  had  all  the  respect  he  could  desire 
shown  him  personally,  as  well  as  in  his  public  character, 
"  from  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  town."  *  "  Perhaps," 
said  Andrew  Eliot,  "  it  might  be  as  well  not  to  dispute  in 
such  strong  terms  the  legal  right  of  Parliament.  This  is  a 
point  that  clmnot  easily  be  settled,  and  had  therefore  best  be 
touched  very  gently.  It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  Par- 
liament will  give  up  their  right  of  taxation  in  express  terms  ; 
it  will  be  prudence  for  them  never  again  to  exercise  it.  If 
the  Colonies  dispute  their  right  of  legislation,  which  hath 
always  been  submitted  to,  particularly  with  respect  to  the 
regulation  of  trade,  it  may  raise  a  new  ferment,  and  may 
create  suspicions  that  nothing  will  satisfy  but  absolute  inde- 
pendence. At  present,  things  are  very  quiet."  f  These  were 
not  the  counsels  that  led  to  American  Independence ;  but 
they  were  entertained  by  men  equally  sincere  and  patriotic 

*  Hutchinson  to  Col.  "Williams,  April  5,  1771. 
t  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  April  25,  1771. 


390  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

with  Mr.  Eliot.  James  Otis,  now  a  ruin  of  his  former  great- 
ness, had  a  temporary  return  of  reason,  and  his  townsmen 
readily  reinstated  him  in  the  political  field,  where  he  had 
once  been  the  leading  spirit,  but  could  now  only  retard  and 
distract  the  public  interests.*  John  Adams,  after  a  few 
months'  service  in  the  Legislature,  had  retired  from  public 
life,  ceasing  even  to  write  in  the  cause,  and  evidently  dis- 
gusted with  the  apparent  subsidence  of  patriotic  spirit. f 
Indignant  at  the  insults  to  which  he  had  exposed  himself 
in  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  secure  the  election  of  Samuel 
Adams  as  Register  of  Deeds,  he  now  returned  to  Braintree, 
and  devoted  himself  to  the  practice  of  his  profession.  In  his 
Diary,  he  says  :  — 

"  I  have  acted  my  sentiments  with  the  utmost  frankness  at  the 
hazard  of  all,  and  the  certain  loss  of  ten  times  more  than  it  is  in  the 
power  of  the  people  to  give  me,  for  the  sake  of  the  people ;  and  now 
I  reap  nothing  but  insult,  ridicule,  and  contempt  for  it,  even  from 
many  of  the  people  themselves. 

"  However,  I  have  not  hitherto  regarded  consequences  to  myself. 
I  have  very  cheerfully  sacrificed  my  interest  and  my  health  and 
ease  and  pleasure,  in  the  service  of  the  people.  I  have  stood  by 
their  friends  longer  than  they  would  stand  by  them.  I  have  stood 
by  the  people  much  longer  than  they  would  stand  by  themselves. 
But  I  have  learned  wisdom  by  experience.  I  shall  certainly  be- 
come more  retired  and  cautious ;  I  shall  certainly  mind  my  own 
farm  and  my  own  office."  % 

Standing  alone,  Samuel  Adams  now  prepared,  with  all 
the  powers  of  his  resolute  soul,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  oppo- 
sition, and  sustain  it  in  the  approaching  session.  At  the 
annual  election  on  the  7th  of  May,  he  had  been  chosen  a 
member  of  the  Legislature  with  Hancock,  dishing,  and  Otis. 
There  would  be  every  difficulty  to  encounter.  The  Gov- 
ernor and  his  friends,  seeking  to  destroy  the  influence  of 
Adams  in  the  Assembly,  witnessed  with  eager  pleasure  the 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  403.  t  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  257,  282. 

J  Ibid,  II.  259,  260. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  391 

brightening  prospects  of  loyalty,  and  were  sagacious  enough 
to  improve  an  occasion  more  opportune  than  any  which  had 
presented  itself  since  the  commencement  of  the  revenue 
troubles.  The  event  proved  how  well  founded  were  their 
expectations ;  but  their  advantage  was  not  to  be  of  long 
duration,  though  the  patriot  cause  was  indeed  for  a  time 
divided  against  itself.  Otis,  who  was  guarded  with  brotherly 
care  by  Samuel  Adams,  was  so  irritable  and  weak  as  to  har- 
bor jealousy  of  the  great  influence  of  his  friend,  and  did  not 
hesitate  to  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of  success,  thereby 
encouraging  a  concession  to  the  demands  of  government.* 
Cushing  lacked  the  necessary  qualifications  for  an  important 
emergency,  and  could  never  aspire  to  leadership.  Hawley, 
between  the  sessions,  lived  far  in  the  interior  of  the  State, 
but  even  his  presence  afforded  generally  only  sound  advice  on 
questions  of  law.  Able,  sincere,  and  of  spotless  character,  he 
was  nevertheless  unfitted  to  guide,  and  his  excitable  nature 
wavered  between  vehemence  and  despondency.!  Hancock, 
never  an  adviser  or  writer,  brought  to  the  House,  as  it 
proved,  qualities  calculated  rather  to  impede  than  advance 
the  principles  upon  which  the  public  liberties  had  been 
built.  At  this  time,  Mr.  Adams,  to  influence  the  inland 
counties,  where  the  election  seemed  to  be  doubtful,  wrote 
a  series  of  articles  in  the  public  press,  commencing  a  week 
prior  to  the  contest  and  extending  to  the  last  week  in  May. 
Aware  of  the  efforts  of  Hutchinson  and  his  satellites  to  sub- 
vert the  elections  and  place  their  own  agents  in  the  Assembly, 
and  of  the  Governor's  plausible  professions,^  he  warns  his 
readers  against  the  danger,  and  points  out  the  inevitable  re- 
sults.   On  the  general  condition  of  public  affairs,  he  says :  — 

*  Hutchinson,  III.  339.  Bancroft,  VI.  403.  Barry,  II.  438.  On  Mr. 
Adams's  "constant  guardianship  of  James  Otis,"  see  an  article  in  the  Boston 
Patriot,  July  26,  and  in  the  Independent  Chronicle,  July  29,  1826,  written  by 
one  who  had  been  a  friend  and  contemporary  of  Samuel  Adams. 

t  Bancroft,  VI.  118.  The  name  of  Hawley  does  not  appear  during  this 
session  upon  any  important  committee,  if  he  was  a  member  of  the  House. 

J  Bancroft,  VI.  402.     Compare  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  284). 


392  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

"  The  troops  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain  which  occupy  Castle 
William  may  be  viewed  in  the  same  light,  and  are  as  dangerous  to 
our  constitutional  freedom,  as  so  many  Swiss,  French,  Spanish,  or 
Eussians ;  because  they  are  not  raised,  paid,  and  regulated  by  our 
Representatives.  And  our  King  has  no  more  right  to  send  those 
troops  into  that  Castle  than  he  has  to  send  them  into  Hanover  or 
Portugal,  without  a  previous  contract  for  the  purpose.  I  fear  that 
some  of  you,  known  and  respected  friends  to  liberty,  may  be  a  little 
surprised  at  the  second  assertion.  The  treatment  we  have  lately- 
received  has  not  yet  quite  destroyed  the  affection  for  Great  Britain, 
and  the  confidence  in  her  justice,  which  have  permitted  certain 
things  to  become  habitual  in  this  Province,  though  incompatible 
with  the  rights  of  it.  That  affection  and  that  confidence  is  your  only 
ground  of  surprise  ;  you  cannot  furnish  any  other. 

"  I  know  also  that  some  among  us  who  are  to  be  pitied,  and  others 
who  are  to  be  despised,  will  fret  and  rave.  Ignorance  in  the  first, 
and  rapacity  in  the  last,  will  furnish  fuel  for  anger.  This  placed, 
pensioned,  or  expecting  tribe  may  tell  us  that  the  new  block-houses 
upon  the  western  part  of  Castle  Island  are  built  out  of  love  to  the 
Province,  especially  to  the  towns  of  Boston  and  Dorchester ;  though 
if  the  French  king's  troops  had  erected  them  by  his  order,  it  would 
be  readily  allowed  to  proceed  from  a  spirit  of  jealousy  or  insult.  I 
cannot  make  such  distinctions.  I  thank  God  that  I  feel  so  much 
true  loyalty  that  I  can  be  grieved  at  the  jealousy,  and  so  much  true 
freedom  that  I  can  feel  resentment  at  the  insult,  of  this  plan  of  forti- 
fication. 

"  Few  words  are  necessary  now  to  express  my  idea  of  our  proper 
condition.  We  are  either  a  State,  as  entirely  independent  of  Great 
Britain  as  any  other  on  earth  which  makes  use  of  her  protection,  or 
we  are  her  free  Colonies.  In  both  these  cases  her  conduct  towards 
us  should  be  identically  the  same. 

"  I  have  said  we  live  under  a  government  of  three  branches,  Wis- 
dom, Goodness,  and  Power  to  execute  their  resolutions.  A  man  of 
truly  inflexible  integrity,  Governor  Phips,  —  Heaven  bless  his  de- 
parted spirit,  —  was  of  that  opinion.  'T  is  true  he  is  now  sneered 
at  by  shallow-pated  sycophancy  ;  but  his  opinion  is  not  less  founded 
upon  the  solid  rational  principles  of  the  British  and  similar  American 
Constitution,  for  the  sneers  of  such.  Behold,  my  dear  countrymen, 
the  mystery  of  government !     It  was  instituted  for  the  happiness  of 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  393 

the  people.  The  two  representative  bodies  of  Wisdom  and  Good- 
ness shall  point  out  that  happiness.  The  I,  the  one  individual 
of  Power,  shall  frustrate  their  unanimous  decisions.  Whence 
does  this  arise  ?  Either  from  an  abominable  vain  conceit  in  this 
individual  that  he  is  possessed  of  superior  wisdom  and  good- 
ness to  these  two  united  bodies,  or  from  the  influence  of  pri- 
vate instructions,  received  by  the  way  of  the  Thames,  the  Seine, 
or  Tiber,  from  Westminster,  Paris,  or  Rome,  —  'tis  of  no  impor- 
tance which,  —  or  from  some  other  motive  equally  injurious  in  its 
consequences."  * 

The  second  of  this  series  of  articles  (that  of  May  6), 
which  contained  a  warning  against  the  machinations  of  the 
Governor  and  his  friends,  Hutchinson  sent  to  Bernard. 
"  Our  sons  of  sedition,''  he  writes,  "  are  afraid  of  a  change 
of  members  in  many  towns,  and  make  a  strong  effort  in  the 
newspapers  to  prevent  it.  In  this  week's  paper  you  see  the 
black  art  of  Adams."  f 

On  the  29th  of  May  the  General  Assembly  met  at  Cam- 
bridge, when  Adams  was,  as  usual,  elected  Clerk.  He  was 
now  unaided  by  a  single  member  of  the  Boston  delegation 
on  the  floor  of  the  House.  Loyalty  prevailed,  and  the  de- 
cided patriots  were  in  a  minority.  %  The  tone  of  the  Assem- 
bly was  instantly  made  manifest.  Before  proceeding  upon 
the  next  business  in  order,  a  remonstrance  on  the  subject  of 
the  removal  of  the  General  Assembly  back  to  its  original 
seat  was  agreed  upon.  This  had  now  been  persisted  in  for 
three  years,  —  the  House  having  proceeded  to  business  each 
year  under  protest.  At  the  session  of  November,  1770,  it 
will  be  remembered,  the  vote  on  this  question  was  not  so 
unanimous  as  before.  §  This  year,  the  loyal  sentiment  had 
so  far  increased,  that  the  House,  in  April,  had  been  almost 
equally  divided  between  the  friends  of  government  and  the 
opposition.  ||    But  at  the  present  session  there  was  a  balance 

*  "An  Elector  in  1771,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  May  20,  1771. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  May  10,  1771. 
t  Bancroft,  VI.  405.  §  See  ante,  p.  369. 

||  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  II.  263). 


394  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  *      [May, 

in  favor  of  timidity,  artifice,  and  trimming.  The  principle 
involved  in  the  dispute  with  Hutchinson  on  the  removal  of 
the  Assembly  was  of  the  first  importance.  It  included  the 
acknowledgment  or  denial  of  the  mischievous  right  claimed 
by  the  Crown  of  infringing  on  a  clause  in  the  charter  of  the 
Province  specifying  where  the  General  Court  should  hold 
its  sessions.  To  yield  that  was  to  give  up  all  that  had  been 
asserted  against  the  violations  of  the  charter.  For  to  con- 
cede any  part  was  to  concede  the  whole.  It  was  from  this 
point  of  view  that  the  stubborn  struggle  in  the  House,  on 
the  removal,  assumed  such  importance,  and  that  it  was  re- 
garded as  of  paramount  interest  in  asserting  the  royal  pre- 
rogative, is  evident  from  the  undeviating  determination  of 
the  Governor  to  keep  them  at  Cambridge  until  the  point  of 
right  was  yielded.  He  was  now  sanguine  that  the  members 
would  hold  out  no  longer.  The  test  was  made  at  once. 
After  the  remonstrance  had  been  agreed  upon,  the  House 
proceeded  to  the  election  of  Councillors  before  presenting  it. 
Otis,  who  had  been  awaiting  his  opportunity,  now  moved  to 
strike  out  that  clause  in  the  remonstrance  which  might  be 
construed  into  a  denial  of  the  right  of  removing  the  Assem- 
bly. The  motion,  despite  the  exertions  of  Adams  and  the 
few  who  still  clung  to  the  old  principles,  was  carried ;  and 
the  Governor,  delighted  with  this  favorable  indication,  which 
made  the  removal  only  an  "inconvenience,"  sent  back  a  gen- 
tle answer,  assuring  them  of  his  efforts  to  set  aside  all  obsta- 
cles to  their  removal  back  to  Boston,  but  that  he  must  have 
his  Majesty's  leave.*  We  can  imagine  the  chagrin  of  Samuel 
Adams  at  these  proceedings.  All  that  he  had  been  contend- 
ing for  since  the  spring  of  1770,  when  the  Court  had  been 
removed,  was  renounced  after  a  brief  battle,  and  the  arbi 
trary  right  in  government  to  break  the  charter  at  pleasure 
admitted.  Willing  to  put  the  test  more  directly,  in  hopes 
of  bringing  round  a  sufficient  number  for  a  majority,  as  he 
had  done  in  1768,  at  the  time  of  the  vote  against  the  adop- 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  301.     Hutchinson,  HI.  339. 


1771.]      ,  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  395 

tion  of  the  Circular  Letter,  he  offered  a  resolution  to  do  no 
business  except  in  the  town  of  Boston,  at  the  same  time 
speaking  against  the  Governor.  John  Adams,  in  his  Diary, 
thus  refers  to  the  scene  which  ensued :  — 

"  John  Chandler,  Esq.,  of  Petersham,  came  into  P/s  in  the  even- 
ing from  Boston  yesterday,  and  gave  me  an  account  of  Mr.  Otis's 
conversion  to  Toryism.  Adams  was  going  on  in  the  old  road,  and 
Otis  started  up,  and  said  they  had  gone  far  enough  in  that  way ; 
the  Governor  had  an  undoubted  right  to  carry  the  Court  where  he 
pleased,  and  moved  for  a  committee  to  represent  the  inconveniences 
of  sitting  there,  and  for  an  address  to  the  Governor.  He  was  a 
good  man ;  the  ministers  said  so ;  the  justices  said  so ;  and  it 
must  be  so;  and  moved  to  go  on  with  business;  and  the  House 
voted  everything  he  moved  for.  Boston  people  say  he  is  dis 
tracted,"  &c.  * 

Hutchinson,  alluding  to  this,  writes :  — 

u  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  moved  the  House  to  come  into  a  resolve  to 
do  no  business  except  in  the  town  of  Boston,  and  expressed  an  opin- 
ion of  the  Governor  not  very  favorable.  Mr.  Otis  opposed  the  mo- 
tion, and  expressed  a  very  favorable  opinion  of  the  Governor,  and 
his  belief  of  the  same  opinion  in  the  people,  and  added  that  he  was 
clear  in  opinion  that  the  Governor  had  good  right  to  carry  the 
Assembly  to  Housatonic.  if  he  thought  fit ;  and  many  other  mem- 
bers declaring  they  had  been  of  that  mind  the  last  year,  the  motion 
did  not  obtain.  This  afforded  hope  of  conciliation  in  this  particular 
point,  but  subsequent  proceedings  in  the  session  destroyed  it.  Mr. 
Otis,  in  his  calm  moments,  had  always  disavowed  any  design  of  a 
general  revolt  or  of  attaining  to  a  state  of  independency.  He  was 
also  evidently  dissatisfied  with  the  great  influence  which  Mr.  Adams 
had  obtained ;  and  there  was  a  prospect  of  his  being  serviceable  in 
preventing  the  opposition  from  going  to  that  extreme  which  some 
of  them  then  most  evidently  intended ;  but  the  unhappy  state  of  his 
mind  soon  rendered  him  of  no  importance."  f 

Again,  in  a  letter  to  one  in  England,  a  few  days  after,  he 

ys:  — 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  266.  f  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  339. 


396  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  •     [June, 

"  Otis,  in  a  speech  the  first  day  after  his  election,  gave  his  opinion 
to  the  House,  that  we  had  a  very  good  Governor,  and  that  he  was 
sure  the  people  in  all  parts  of  the  Province  thought  so.  He  con- 
demned the  proceedings  of  the  House  the  last  year,  and  acknowl- 
edged the  right  of  the  Governor  to  carry  them  to  Housatonic,  in  the 
western  extreme  of  the  Province;  was  sensible  that  it  would  be 
inconvenient,  and  that  he  would  not  do  it,  and  hoped  he  would  carry 
them  back  to  Boston.  This  gave  a  shock  to  the  party,  and  the 
House  voted  to  go  on  with  their  business  as  usual,  without  a  divis- 
ion or  opposition."  * 

u  The  House  of  Representatives  having  in  the  most  explicit  man- 
ner acknowledged  my  right  to  convene  the  Court  where  I  think 
proper,  they  have  strengthened  government,  and  given  me  more 
weight  in  the  Province  than  they  had  intended.  The  people,  being 
made  sensible  that  I  claimed  no  more  than  the  just  prerogatives  in 
this  instance,  think  more  favorably  of  me  and  of  the  principles  I 
avow  in  other  points  in  difference.  The  return  of  the  Court  to 
Boston,  in  consequence  of  this  concession,  will  give  me  further 
weight,  and,  it  may  be,  enable  me  to  obtain  other  points  equally 
reasonable  for  them  to  concede."  f 

Thus  the  Governor  admitted  the  importance  of  the  con- 
cession, by  stating  his  intention  of  removing  the  Court  to 
Boston  in  consequence,  and  he  considered  it  the  introduction 
to  further  advantages.  But,  besides  the  opposition  of  James 
Otis  and  of  that  considerable  body  of  the  House  who  had 
needed  only  this  dangerous  example  to  give  utterance  to  opin- 
ions which  many  had  secretly  entertained  since  the  com- 
mencement of  the  removal  dispute,  Adams  had  now  also 
to  encounter  the  enmity  of  John  Hancock,  who,  about  this 
time,  began  to  oppose  his  measures  for  the  public  safety. 
This  was  a  matter  of  much  more  importance  than  the  action 
of  Otis,  whose  course,  much  as  it  assisted  temporarily  to 
encourage  the  government  party,  could  scarcely  be  consid- 
ered that  of  a  responsible  agent.  But  Hancock,  owing  to 
his  wealth  and  great  influence  in  Boston,  was  powerful  for 

*  Hutchinson  to  a  person  unknown,  June  5,  1771. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  June  5,  1771. 


1771  I  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  39T 

good  or  evil.  Among  all  those  whom  Samuel  Adams  had 
enlisted  in  the  patriot  service,  none  had  been  attended  by 
him  with  such  assiduity  as  Hancock,  whose  vanity  and  petu- 
lance often  made  it  necessary  to  humor  his  caprices,  while  a 
natural  generosity  counterbalanced,  among  those  who  knew 
him  best,  his  frequent  vacillations.  At  a  later  period,  he 
could  make  profuse  sacrifices  of  wealth  for  his  country,  and 
was  most  liberal  in  his  expenses  for  public  purposes.  He 
was  fond  of  dress  and  personal  display,  scattered  largesses 
with  open  hand,  was  quickly  offended  among  his  friends, 
implacable  to  his  enemies,  and  intensely  fond  of  popular  ap- 
plause. Such  a  character  might  easily  become  an  idol  with 
the  people,  and,  backed  by  a  large  fortune,  reach  the  pinna- 
cle of  his  aspirations ;  *  but  whoever  should  attempt  to 
guide  him  in  the  existing  crisis  must  be  possessed  of  rare 
powers  of  persuasion  and  forbearance.  The  immediate  cause 
of  the  present  variance  is  not  traceable  to  any  particular 
circumstance,  but  it  undoubtedly  grew  out  of  the  discussion 
on  the  removal  in  the  former  session,  and  probably  com- 
menced to  display  itself  about  the  same  time  with  the 
unhappy  conduct  of  Otis.  Later  in  the  year,  Hancock's 
resentment  was  excited  against  Otis,  on  some  personal 
ground,  when  he  pursued  him  with  more  rigor  than  to 
Adams  seemed  warrantable,  though  in  a  conversation  on 
that  subject,  wherein  Adams  expressed  his  sympathy  for  the 
condition  of  Otis,  and  defended  his  private  character,  he  did 
not  express  the  least  unfriendliness  towards  Hancock.f  As 
late  as  the  5th  of  April,  1771,  Hutchinson,  writing  to  a 
friend  in  England,  mentioned  Hancock  as  one  of  those  of 
any  consideration  who  still  held  out  against  him.  Between 
that  and  the  5th  of  June,  the  removal  excitement  occurred 

*  Compare  Mrs.  Mercy  Warren's  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  I. 
212,     The  authoress  wrote  from  a  personal  acquaintance  with  John  Hancock. 

t  There  is  among  the  Adams  papers  a  curious  memorandum  of  a  conver- 
sation between  Harrison  Gray,  Jr.,  Samuel  Adams,  and  Mr.  John  Cotton,  on 
the  subject  of  Otis's  habits  and  conduct,  and  Hancock's  recent  treatment  of 
him.     It  is  dated  Dec.  8, 1771. 


398  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

in  the  House,  and  on  the  last-mentioned  date,  Hutchinson 
again  writing  in  relation  to  his  having  rejected  Hancock  a 
few  days  before,  when  chosen  by  the  Legislature  as  a  Council- 
lor, says :  — 

"  I  can  mention  to  you  what  will  appear  improper  in  a  public 
letter.  I  was  much  pressed  by  many  persons  well  affected  in  gen- 
eral to  consent  to  the  election  of  Mr.  Hancock,  his  connections  being 
large,  which  are  strongly  prejudiced  against  me  for  the  frequent  re- 
fusals to  accept  of  him  in  office.  They  assured  me  he  wished  to  be 
separated  from  Mr.  Adams,  another  Representative  of  the  town,  an 
incendiary  equal  to  any  at  present  in  London,  and,  if  I  would  admit 
him  to  the  Council,  they  had  no  doubt  there  could  be  an  end  to  the 
influence  he  has  by  means  of  his  property  in  the  town  of  Boston. 
As  there  had  been  no  advances  on  his  part,  I  could  not  think  it 
proper  for  me  to  follow  their  advice.  I  have  now  reason  to  think 
that,  before  another  election,  he  will  alter  his  conduct  so  far  as  to 
justify  my  acceptance  of  him,  which  certainly  will  take  off  that 
sourness  of  temper  from  many  people  which  his  negatives  occasion  ; 
and  unless  you  think  it  a  step  not  advisable,  I  believe  I  shall  accept 
of  him.  Having  from  year  to  year  the  general  votes  both  of  Coun- 
cil and  House,  the  constant  refusal  is  more  disagreeable  to  the 
people."  * 

From  this  it  is  evident  that  the  gentlemen  who  applied  to 
the  Governor  to  urge  his  acceptance  of  Hancock  as  Coun- 
cillor must  have  had  this  interview  before  the  Legislature 
met,  which  was  on  the  29th  of  May.  It  was  therefore 
before  that  time  that  the  coldness  between  the  two  Repre- 
sentatives commenced,  as  the  dislike  expressed  by  Hancock 
of  the  policy  of  his  colleague  is  mentioned  as  already  exist- 
ing at  that  time.  Hutchinson  states  that  "  Hancock  ex- 
pressed his  dissatisfaction  with  the  party  and  with  their 
extending  their  designs  further  than  appeared  to  him  war- 
rantable." f  It  would  seem  that  the  plan  proposed  in  the 
letter,  from  which  an  extract  is  given  above,  was  tried,  and 

*  Hutchinson  to  a  person  unknown,  June  5,  1771. 
t  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  346. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  399 

that  an  interview  for  that  purpose  occurred  between  the 
Governor  and  Hancock.     To  quote  Hutchinson  again  :  — 

"  The  Governor  very  willingly  signified  to  him,  that  the  repeated 
denials  of  consent  to  his  election  into  public  offices  had  not  pro- 
ceeded from  any  degree  of  ill  will  towards  him,  or  from  any  excep- 
tion to  his  general  character,  but  altogether  from  the  part  which  he 
had  taken  in  opposition  to  that  authority  which  the  Governor,  from 
his  office  and  fidelity  to  the  trust  reposed  in  him  by  the  King,  was 
bound  to  support ;  and  that,  upon  a  change  of  sentiments  in  Mr. 
Hancock,  everything  past  would  be  entirely  forgotten,  and  it  would 
be  a  pleasure  to  the  Governor  to  consent  to  his  election  to  the 
Council,  where  he  could  more  easily  take  such  share  in  the  public 
affairs  as  he  thought  fit,  than  he  could  do  in  the  House,  business  in 
the  latter  requiring  a  more  close  and  constant  attention.  This  he 
declared  to  be  neither  his  object  nor  inclination ;  but  he  intended 
to  quit  all  active  concern  in  public  affairs,  and  to  attend  to  his  pri- 
vate business,  which,  by  means  of  his  attention  to  the  public,  had 
been  too  much  neglected.  The  disunion,  however,  which  lasted 
several  months,  checked  the  progress  of  measures  in  opposition  to 
government."  * 

Thus  deserted  at  a  crisis  of  peculiar  difficulty,  and  left 
almost  alone  to  sustain  the  question  of  an  inviolate  charter, 
Samuel  Adams  was  for  a  while  unable  to  stem  the  tide  ;  but 
he  bided  his  time.  He  had  seen  the  non-importation  scheme 
come  to  nought  among  the  merchants,  yet  he  never  de- 
spaired, and  found  in  difficulties  only  incentives  for  in- 
creased efforts.  He  was  one  of  the  committee  to  bear  to 
the  Governor  the  unworthy  report,  wounding  the  cause  in 
the  house  of  its  friends,  and  destroying  in  an  hour  what  it 
had  taken  years  to  construct.!  But  he  gathered  his  re- 
sources, and  falling  back  upon  his  own  powers,  stood  ready 
to  improve  the  first  opportunity  to  retrieve  the  action  of  the 
House.    He  saw  the  fatal  spirit  of  concession  which  was 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  346,  347. 
t  Journal  of  the  House,  May  29,  1771. 


400  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

establishing  the  Governor's  influence  over  the  members,* 
and  while  with  undaunted  resolution  he  sought  for  the  means 
of  checking  the  contagion,  his  peculiarly  sensitive  mind  was 
keenly  alive  to  his  own  position  and  the  ill-concealed  joy  of 
the  Loyalists  and  wavering  members  of  his  own  party.  Men 
in  the  Province  who  brought  to  mind  the  greatness  of  his 
character  and  services  looked  on  with  surprise,  and  even 
some  known  to  be  favorable  to  government  pointed  to  the 
scenes  in  the  Assembly,  and  observed  his  fortitude.  John 
Adams,  who  had  bid  "  farewell  to  politics,"  f  was  away  in 
York,  busily  attending  to  his  profession. 

"  Sparhawk,"  he  writes,  after  a  conversation,  a  few  weeks  later, 
with  the  grandson  of  Sir  William  Pepperell,  "mentioned  the  in- 
trepidity of  Samuel  Adams,  a  man,  he  says,  of  great  sensibility, 
of  tender  nerves,  and  harassed,  dependent,  in  their  power.  Yet 
he  had  borne  up  against  all;  it  must  have  penetrated  him  very 
deeply,"  &c.  $ 

The  Governor  improved  the  occasion  with  his  writers 
in  the  Massachusetts  Gazette  and  Evening  Post,  to  cast 
abroad  among  the  people  the  idea  that  there  was  now  gen- 
eral satisfaction  with  the  policy  of  government,  that  the  fac- 
tion was  at  an  end,  and  that  the  people  were  "  returning  to 
their  right  senses."  His  Excellency,  who  well  understood 
the  power  of  the  press,  kept  a  corps  of  writers  whose  effu- 
sions displayed  a  plausibility  worthy  a  better  cause.  It  was 
important  to  counteract  their  effect,  and  Adams  now  entered 
the  field  as  "  Candidus,"  and,  in  a  series  of  essays,  endeav- 
ored to  show  that  the  spirit  of  liberty  had  not  subsided  into 
an  ignoble  contentment.  In  one  of  these,  he  replies  to  Dra- 
per's, or  the  court,  Gazette  :  — 

"  '  Benevolus,'  in  Mr.  Draper's  Gazette,  seems  to  have  no  doubts 
in  his  mind  but  that  *  a  general  air  of  satisfaction,  arising  from  the 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  278.  See  also  Samuel  Adams  as  "  Candidus," 
in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  14,  1771.     Chap.  XX.  post. 

t  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  227.  J  John  Adams's  Works,  II.  285. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  401 

accounts  given  in  the  last  Monday's  papers  of  the  present  state  of 
our  public  affairs,  will  show  itself  universally  through  the  Province.' 
I  have  no  inclination  to  disturb  the  sweet  repose  of  this  placid  gen- 
tleman ;  but  I  must  confess  I  see  no  cause  for  such  a  general  air  of 
satisfaction  from  those  accounts,  and  I  will  venture  to  add  that  there 
is  no  appearance  of  it  in  this  town.  Does  '  Benevolus '  think  it  is 
possible  for  the  good  people  of  this  Province  to  be  satisfied,  when 
they  are  told  by  the  Governor,  as.  appears  by  the  last  Monday's 
papers,  that  he  is  restrained  from  holding  the  Court  in  its  ancient, 
usual,  and  most  convenient  place,  without  his  Majesty's  express 
leave  ?  Does  not  the  charter  say  that  the  Governor  shall  have  the 
power  of  acting  in  this  matter  i  as  he  shall  judge  necessary '  ?  Is  it 
not  of  great  importance  to  the  welfare  of  the  Province  that  the 
Governor  should  be  vested  with  such  a  power,  and  that  he  should 
exercise  it  without  restraint  ?  While  he  is,  or  thinks  himself,  fet- 
tered by  an  absolute  instruction  to  hold  the  Assembly  out  of  the 
town  of  Boston,  to  the  inconvenience  of  the  members  and  the  injury 
of  the  people,  as  the  present  House  of  Representatives  express  it, 
can  he  be  said  to  have  the  free  exercise  of  all  the  powers  vested  in 
him  by  the  charter,  which  is  our  social  compact  ?  Will  it  yield  such 
a  general  satisfaction  to  the  people  as  *  Benevolus '  expects,  to  see 
their  Governor  thus  embarrassed  in  his  administration,  and  to  hear 
him  expressly  declaring  that  he  must  ask  leave  and  be  determined 
by  the  judgment  of  another  in  a  matter  in  which  it  is  his  indispen- 
sable duty  to  act  with  freedom  and  by  the  determination  of  his  own 
judgment  ?  Is  not  this  power  devolved  upon  him  by  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  Province  for  the  good  of  the  people  ?  Is  it  not  a 
beneficiary  grant,  and  therefore  a  right  of  the  people?  And  if 
instructions  may  control  him  in  the  exercise  of  one  charter  right, 
may  they  not  control  in  the  exercise  of  any  or  every  one  ?  And 
yet  \  Benevolus '  would  fain  have  it  thought  that  there  is  a  general 
satisfaction  in  the  town  of  Boston  arising  from  this  account,  and 
doubts  not  but  it  will  run  through  the  Province. 

"  Surely  *  Benevolus '  must  either  be  totally  inadvertent  to  the 
accounts  of  the  state  of  our  public  affairs  as  given  to  us  in  the  last 
Monday's  papers,  or  he  must  have  altogether  confided  in  the  ac- 
counts of  a  confused  writer  in  the  Evening  Post,  who,  in  the  old 
style  of  the  hackneyed  writers  in  Bernard's  administration,  tells  us 

vol.  i.  26 


402  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

that  faction  is  now  at  an  end,  and,  with  an  awkward  air  of  gravity, 
insinuates  that  the  people,  after  having  nobly  struggled  for  their 
freedom,  are,  under  the  benign  influence  of  the  present  administra- 
tion, '  returning  to  their  right  senses.'  A  firm  and  manly  opposition 
to  the  attempts  that  have  been  made  and  are  still  making  to  enslave 
and  ruin  this  continent  has  always  been  branded  by  writers  of  this 
stamp  by  the  name  of  a  faction.  Governor  Bernard  used  to  tell 
his  Lordship  that  it  was  an  '  expiring  faction * ;  with  as  little  reason 
it  is  now  said  to  have  given  up  the  ghost.  Gladly  would  some, 
even  of  the  clergy,  persuade  this  people  to  be  at  ease,  and  for  the 
sake  of  peace  under  the  administration  of  '  a  son  of  the  Province/ 
to  acquiesce  in  unconstitutional  revenue  acts,  arbitrary  ministerial 
mandates,  and  absolute,  despotic,  independent  governors,  &c,  &c. 
But  the  time  is  not  yet  come ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that,  notwith- 
standing the  address  of  a  few  who  took  the  opportunity  to  carry  it 
through,  while  only  the  small  number  of  twenty-four  were  present, 
there  is  in  that  venerable  order  a  great  majority  who  will  not  go  up 
to  the  house  of  Rimmon  or  bow  the  knee  to  Baal."  * 

Adams  was  on  the  committee  appointed  by  the  House  to 
answer  the  Governor's  speech  at  the  opening  of  the  summer 
session.  The  report  was  submitted  on  the  14th  of  June. 
Besides  taking  up  the  subjects  mentioned  in  the  address,  it 
refers  to  the  Provincial  militia,  a  bill  for  the  better  regula- 
tion of  which  had  been  rejected  by  his  Excellency  in  No- 
vember of  the  previous  year.  The  House  insisted  that  the 
subject  required  serious  attention,  and  pointed  to  the  desire 
of  the  people  to  excel  in  the  military  art,  and  their  readiness 
to  appear  upon  musters  ;  and  they  promised  themselves  that 
the  military  sentiment  of  the  country  would  again  be  as 
conspicuous  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  their  forefathers,  and 
thereby  promote  his  Majesty's  real  service  and  the  safety  of 
the  Province.  This  desire  to  cultivate  a  military  spirit  had 
often  occupied  the  attention  of  Adams,  as  shown  by  the 
address  of  the  House  a  year  before  on  this  subject,  written 
by  him,  and  also  by  his  letters  about  this  time.     He  attached 

*  "  Candidus  "  in  the  Boston  Gazette  for  June  10,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  403 

all  due  importance  to  it,  and  personally  encouraged  it  among 
young  men. 

The  Governor  had  been  sanguine  that  the  conduct  of  Otis 
would  result  favorably  to  his  plans  for  obtaining  from  the 
House  a  final  concession  of  the  point  in  dispute  ;  "  but  sub- 
sequent proceedings  in  the  session,"  he  says,  "  destroyed 
this  hope."  *  These  "  subsequent  proceedings  "  occurred 
in  about  three  weeks  after  the  scene  in  the  Legislature.  It 
was  now  found  that  a  counter-influence  had  become  strong 
enough  to  secure  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  pre- 
pare a  protest,  in  which  the  House  resumed  its  old  ground 
against  holding  the  session  at  Cambridge.  The  hand  of 
Samuel  Adams,  who  was  the  author  of  the  protest,!  is  man- 
ifest in  this,  though,  to  secure  its  success,  his  own  name  ap- 
pears last  on  the  committee,  being  preceded  by  those  of 
Otis,  Denny,  and  Hancock,  the  first  and  last  of  whom,  since 
the  late  proceedings,  could  have  taken  no  part  in  the  meas- 
ure. The  protest,  which  is  for  the  most  part  in  the  language 
already  quoted  from  "  Candidus,"  $  points  out  the  danger 
of  superseding  the  charter  by  arbitrary  instructions,  which 
reduced  the  Governor  to  a  mere  machine,  and  of  depriving 
the  Assembly,  not  only  of  every  charter  right,  but  of  all 
freedom.  It  then,  in  the  most  explicit  manner,  speaks  out 
"  against  all  such  doctrines,  principles,  and  practices  as  tend 
to  establish  either  ministerial  or  even  royal  instructions  as 
laws  within  the  Province."  It  was  ordered  to  be  entered  on 
the  journal  as  against "  an  intolerable  grievance  which  ought 
speedily  to  be  redressed."  Its  style  is  shown  by  a  few  of  the 
opening  paragraphs. 

"  History  furnishes  us  with  an  instance  of  an  act  of  Parliament 
passed,  giving  the  force  of  laws  to  the  King's  proclamations ;  but 
this,  being  directly  subversive  of  the  Constitution,  was  soon  repealed. 
Yet,  since  that  period,  an  act  has  been  labored  for  to  give  the  force 
of  law  to  the  King's  instructions  to  the  Governors  of  the  Colonies. 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  IH.  339.  t  See  Bancroft,  VI.  403. 

t  See  pp.  400  -  402. 


404  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [June, 

And,  though  it  was  not  effected,  some  Governors  have  appeared  to 
consider  such  instructions  as  laws,  not  only  to  themselves,  but  to  the 
people :  whereas  nothing  can  be  more  clear  than  that  neither  proc- 
lamation nor  instruction  ought  to  have  any  such  force,  either  in 
regard  to  the  Governor  or  the  subject  here. 

"  And  although  it  may  be  within  the  prerogative  of  the  Crown, 
in  case  of  plain  necessity,  to  summon  a  Parliament  to  some  other 
place  than  Westminster ;  and  so  of  a  Governor  of  this  Province,  in 
like  cases  of  plain  necessity,  to  convoke  a  General  Assembly  to 
some  other  place  than  Boston,  its  accustomed  ancient  place,  and 
where  alone  provision  is  made  for  it,  —  yet,  if  a  British  King  should 
call  a  Parliament,  and  keep  it  seven  years  in  Cornwall,  however 
his  Ministry,  as  usual,  might  shift  for  themselves,  their  master  and 
his  affairs  would  be  irretrievably  embarrassed  and  ruined;  and  a 
Governor  of  this  Province,  who,  in  order  to  harass  the  General 
Assembly  into  unconstitutional  and  unconscionable  measures,  should 
convene  and  hold  them  in  the  county  of  Berkshire  or  Lincoln,  would 
render  himself  and  his  administration  justly  ridiculous  and  odious. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  plainly  to  be  distinguished  than  power, 
right,  and  prerogative.  It  is  the  King's  prerogative  to  pardon  all 
crimes  from  trespass  to  high  treason  ;  but  if  the  King  should  pardon 
all  criminals,  there  would  be  an  end  of  his  government.  The  Com- 
mons have  the  sole  right  to  give  and  grant,  or  refuse  to  grant,  taxes ; 
but  if  they  should  refuse  to  give  anything,  there  would  be  also  an 
end  of  government.  Should  a  King  call  a  Parliament  but  once  in 
seven  years,  and,  on  its  meeting,  instantly  dissolve  it,  and  so  repeat- 
edly, a  few  such  repetitions  would  ruin  him,  and  be  deemed  a  total 
dissolution  of  the  social  compact.  Should  a  Governor  of  this  Prov- 
ince annually  convene  a  General  Assembly,  and  before  or  immedi- 
ately after  the  election  of  Councillors  dissolve  such  Assembly,  as  the 
conduct  would  be  similar,  the  inferences  and  consequences  must  also 
be  alike.  For  such  exercise  of  the  prerogative  could  not  be  deemed 
mistakes,  but  must  be  construed  as  voluntary  and  corrupt  abuses  of 
the  prerogative,  and  a  total  perversion  of  the  powers  of  which  it 
consists."  * 

The  fact  that  the  Governor's  salary  was  to  be  paid  thence- 

*  Journal  of  the  House,  June  19,  1771.  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  302. 
Hutchinson,  HI.  540. 


1771.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  405 

forth  by  the  Crown,  independent  of  the  free  grants  of  the 
people,  had  become  publicly  known,  and  was  particularly 
dwelt  upon  in  the  protest.  The  Governor,  who  felt  it  neces- 
sary "  to  make  some  answer  to  so  strange  an  instrument," 
states  that  the  "  protest  was  strongly  opposed  in  the  House, 
and  after  it  was  carried  some  of  the  principal  members  de- 
spaired of  success  in  opposing  any  other  measure,  and 
remained  silent  the  rest  of  the  session.  It  was  considered 
by  government  in  England  as  a  greater  insult  than  had  been 
offered  at  any  time,  and  this  remark  was  made,  that  '  the 
same  men  who  denied  the  right  of  the  King  to  'instruct  his 
Governor  would  soon  deny  the  right  of  appointing  him.'  "  * 
Instances  are  not  wanting  throughout  the  life  of  Samuel 
Adams,  where  his  powers  of  persuasion,  which  were  very 
great,  had  the  effect  of  changing  an  opposition  into  a  de- 
cided adoption  of  his  own  views.  The  protest  was  printed 
in  the  Boston  press,  and,  with  the  newspaper  containing  it, 
Hutchinson  sent  word  to  Lord  Hillsborough  explaining  that, 
in  consequence,  he  had  not  adjourned  the  Court  to  Boston 
as  he  had  intended.!  So  important  indeed  did  he  consider 
it,  as  indicating  a  reaction  from  the  late  gratifying  tone  of 
the  House,  that  he  made  it  the  subject  of  a  special  message 
at  the  close  of  the  session,  combating  its  doctrines  as  calcu- 
lated to  "  retard  that  quiet  and  contentment  which,  he 
doubted  not,  the  gentlemen  of  the  House  in  general  who 
voted  for  it  wished  to  see  fully  restored."  $ 

The  adoption  of  the  protest,  hotly  contested  as  it  was, 
offered  encouragement  for  still  further  advances,  and  it  was 
now  the  turn  of  the  government  party  to  look  with  appre- 
hension to  the  result.  The  opposition  to  the  measures  of 
Samuel  Adams  and  his  friends  was  completely  silenced,  nor 
were  Hancock  and  his  party  able  again  to  distract  the  har- 
mony of  the  House,  until,  with  a  sufficiency  of  newly  elected 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  343,  344. 

t  Hutchinson  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  June  22,  1771. 

J  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  212. 


406  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

members,  at  the  opening  of  the  April  session  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  the  attempt  was  renewed,  aided  by  a  secret  under- 
standing with  Hutchinson.  These  well-laid  plans,  however, 
were  unsuccessful,  though  by  great  activity,  as  will  presently 
appear,  they  were  nearly  accomplished.  How  interesting 
must  have  been  the  exertion  of  those  influences  by  the  con- 
trolling mind  which  had  wrought  such  a  change  ;  —  but  it 
was  a  maxim  with  Adams  never  to  remain  inactive,  if  more 
was  to  be  achieved. 

Accordingly,  on  the  27th  of  June,  we  find  the  resolution 
creating  a  committee  of  correspondence  to  communicate 
with  the  "  agent  and  others  in  England,  the  Speakers  of 
the  several  Assemblies  throughout  the  continent,"  which 
had  passed  in  November,  1770,*  again  introduced  and  car- 
ried, and  the  Speaker,  Adams,  Otis,  Hancock,  and  Heath, 
appointed  members.f  The  exact  words  of  Adams's  previ- 
ous resolution  were  readopted.  A  letter  from  Franklin,  ac- 
knowledging that  of  the  House,  written  in  the  previous  year, 
had  been  received  a  fortnight  before,  and  Adams  was  one  of 
the  committee  to  reply.  $  The  pen  was  again  placed  in  his 
hand,  and  on  the  29th  his  draft  of  a  letter  of  instructions  to 
the  agent  was  accepted.  §  Acknowledging  the  receipt  of 
Franklin's  letter  of  February  5,  the  importance  of  which 
claimed  the  fixed  attention  of  the  House,  the  letter  (now 
copied  from  the  original  rough  draft)  continues :  — 

"  We  cannot  think  the  doctrine  of  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax 
us  is  given  up,  while  an  act  remains  in  force  for  that  purpose,  and 
is  daily  put  in  execution ;  and  the  longer  it  remains,  the  more  dan- 
ger there  is  of  the  people's  becoming  so  accustomed  to  arbitrary  and 
unconstitutional  taxes  as  to  pay  them  without  discontent ;  and  then, 
as  you  justly  observe,  no  minister  will  ever  think  of  taking  them 
off,  but  will  rather  be  encouraged  to  add  others.  If  ever  the  Pro- 
vincial Assemblies  should  be  voluntarily  silent,  on  the  Parliament 
taking  upon  themselves  a  power  thus  to  violate  our  constitutional 

*  See,  ante,  p.  373.  t  Journal  of  the  House,  June  27,  1771. 

\  Journal,  June  29, 1771.  §  Bancroft,  VI.  406. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  407 

and  charter  rights,  it  might  hereafter  be  considered  as  an  approba- 
tion of  it,  or  at  least  a  tacit  consent  that  such  power  should  be  exer- 
cised at  any  future  time.  It  is  therefore  our  duty  to  declare  our 
rights,  and  our  determined  resolution  at  all  times  to  maintain  them. 
The  time  we  know  will  come  when  they  must  be  acknowledged  and 
secured  to  us  and  our  posterity. 

"  We  sincerely  feel  the  effects,  not  of  a  revenue  raised,  but  a  trib- 
ute exacted  without  our  free  consent  or  control;  pensioners  and 
placemen  are  daily  multiplying,  and  a  fleet  and  standing  armies  are 
posted  in  North  America  for  no  other  apparent  or  real  purpose  than 
to  protect  the  exactors  and  collectors  of  the  tribute  for  which  they 
are  maintained,  and  many  of  them  in  pomp  and  pride  to  triumph 
over  and  insult  an  injured  people,  and  suppress,  if  possible,  even 
their  murmurs.  And  there  is  reason  to  expect  that  the  continued 
increase  of  their  numbers  will  lead  to  a  proportionable  increase  of 
tribute  to  support  them.  What  will  be  the  consequence  ?  Either, 
on  the  one  hand,  an  abject  slavery  in  the  people,  which  is  ever  to 
be  deprecated,  or  a  determined  resolution  openly  to  assert  and 
maintain  their  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges.  The  effect  of  such 
a  resolution  may  for  some  time  be  retarded  by  flattering  hopes  and 
prospects ;  and  while  it  is  the  duty  of  all  persons  of  influence  here 
to  inculcate  the  sentiments  of  moderation,  it  will  be,  in  our  opinion, 
equally  the  wisdom  of  the  British  administration  to  consider  the 
danger  of  forcing  a  free  people  by  oppressive  measures  into  a  state 
of  desperation. 

"  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  American  Colonies,  how- 
ever they  may  have  disagreed  among  themselves  in  one  mode  of 
opposition  to  the  arbitrary  measures,  are  still  united  in  the  main 
principles  of  constitutional  and  natural  liberty;  and  they  will  not 
give  up  one  single  point  in  controversy  of  any  consequence,  though 
they  may  take  no  violent  measures  to  obtain  them.  The  taxing 
their  property  without  their  consent,  and  thus  appropriating  it  to 
the  purposes  of  their  slavery  and  destruction,  is  justly  considered  as 
contrary  to,  and  subversive  of,  their  original  social  compact,  and 
their  intention  in  uniting  under  it.  They  cannot  therefore  readily 
think  themselves  obliged  to  renounce  those  forms  of  government  to 
which  alone,  for  the  advantages  implied  or  resulting,  they  were  will- 
ing to  submit.  We  are  sensible,  as  you  observe,  that  the  design  of 
our  enemies  in  England,  as  well  as  of  those  who  reside  here,  is  to 


408  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

render  us  odious  as  well  as  contemptible,  and  to  prevent  all  concern 
for  us  in  the  friends  of  liberty  in  England,  and  perhaps  to  detach 
our  sister  Colonies  from  us,  and  prevent  their  aid  and  influence  in 
our  behalf,  when  the  subject  of  oppressing  us  further  and  depriving 
us  of  our  rights  by  various  violent  measures  should  be  carried  into 
execution.  In  this,  however,  we  flatter  ourselves  they  have  failed. 
But  should  all  the  other  Colonies  become  weary  of  their  liberties, 
after  the  example  of  the  Hebrews,  this  Province  will  never  submit 
to  the  authority  of  an  absolute  government." 

The  letter  then  passes  to  the  consideration  of  the  inten- 
tion to  render  the  Governor  and  other  royal  officers  depend- 
ent only  on  the  Crown  for  support,  of  which  Mr.  Adams  had 
been  privately  informed  nearly  a  year  before,  and  to  which 
Franklin  had  lately  called  the  attention  of  the  House. 

"  The  charter  of  this  Province,"  says  the  letter  in  reply,  "  recog- 
nizes the  natural  right  of  all  men  to  dispose  of  their  own  property ; 
and  the  Governor  here,  like  all  other  governors,  kings,  and  poten- 
tates, is  to  be  supported  by  the  free  grants  of  the  representatives  of 
the  people.  Every  one  sees  the  necessity  of  this,  to  preserve  the 
balance  of  power  and  the  freedom  of  any  state.  A  power  without 
a  check  is  subversive  of  all  freedom.  If,  therefore,  the  Governor, 
who  is  appointed  by  the  Crown,  shall  be  totally  independent  of  the 
free  grants  of  the  people  for  his  support,  where  is  the  check  upon 
his  power  ?  He  becomes  absolute,  and  may  act  as  he  pleases.  He 
may  make  use  of  his  power,  not  for  the  good  of  those  who  are  under 
it,  but  for  his  own  private,  separate  advantage,  or  any  other  pur- 
pose to  which  he  may  be  inclined  or  instructed  by  him  upon  whom 
alone  he  depends.  Such  an  independency  threatens  the  very  being 
of  a  free  Constitution,  and  if  it  takes  effect  will  produce  and  firmly 
establish  a  tyranny  upon  its  ruin. 

•  ,  •  •  • 

"  Let  us  then  consider  the  power  the  Governor  already  has,  and 
fcis  Majesty's  negative  on  all  our  acts,  and  judge  whether  the  pur- 
poses of  tyranny  will  not  be  amply  answered  !  Can  it  be  expected 
that  any  law  will  pass  here  but  such  as  will  promote  the  favorite 
design  ?  And  the  laws  already  made,  as  they  will  be  executed  by 
officers  altogether  dependent  on  the  Crown,  will  undoubtedly  be  per-? 
verted  to  the  worst  of  purposes.     The  Governor  of  the  Province 


1771.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  409 

and  the  principal  fortress  in  it  are  probably  already  thus  supported. 
These  are  the  first  fruits  of  the  system  ;  if  the  rest  should  follow,  it 
would  be  only  in  a  greater  degree  a  violation  of  our  essential,  natu- 
ral rights.  To  what  purpose,  then,  will  it  be  to  preserve  the  old 
forms  without  the  substance  ?  In  such  a  state,  and  with  such  pros- 
pects, can  Britain  expect  anything  but  a  gloomy  discontent  in  the 
Colonists?  Let  our  fellow-subjects,  then,  recollect  what  would 
have  been  their  fate  long  ago,  if  their  ancestors  had  submitted  to 
the  unreasonable  and  uncharitable  usurpations,  exactions,  and  impo- 
sitions of  the  See  of  Rome,  in  the  reign  of  Harry  the  Eighth.  And 
here  it  may  be  asked,  what  would  have  been  our  fate,  if  our  ances- 
tors had  submitted  to  the  unreasonable  and  uncharitable  usurpations, 
exactions,  and  impositions  of  the  British  Parliament  in  the  reign  of 
William  the  Third  ?  What  we  are,  and  what  we  should  have  been, 
furnish  reflections  for  a  volume.  Soon  would  they  have  sunk  into  a 
state  of  abject  slavery  to  that  haughty  power  which  exalteth  itself 
above  all  that  is  called  God  :  but  they  had  the  true  spirit  of  liberty, 
and  by  exerting  it  they  saved  themselves  and  their  posterity. 

"  It  is,  therefore,  with  entire  approbation  that  we  observe  your 
purpose  freely  to  declare  our  rights,  and  to  remonstrate  against  the 
least  infringement  of  them.  The  capital  complaint  of  all  North 
America  hath  been,  is  now,  and  will  be,  until  relieved,  a  subjuga- 
tion to  as  arbitrary  a  tribute  as  ever  the  Romans  laid  upon  the 
Jews  or  their  other  colonies.  The  repealing  these  duties  in  part 
is  not  considered  by  this  House  as  a  renunciation  of  this  measure. 
It  has  rather  the  appearance  of  a  design  to  soothe  .us  into  security 
in  the  midst  of  danger ;  any  species  of  tribute  unrepealed  will  stand 
as  a  precedent  to  be  made  use  of  hereafter,  as  circumstances  and 
opportunity  may  admit.  If  the  Colonists  acquiesce  in  a  single 
instance,  it  will  in  effect  be  yielding  up  the  whole  matter  in  con- 
troversy. We  therefore  desire  that  it  may  be  universally  under- 
stood, that  although  the  tribute  is  paid,  it  is  not  paid  freely ;  it  is 
exacted  and  torn  from  us  against  our  will ;  we  bear  the  insult  and 
the  injury  for  the  present,  grievous  as  it  is,  with  great  impatience, 
hoping  that  the  wisdom  and  prudence  of  the  nation  will  at  length 
dictate  measures  consistent  with  natural  justice  and  equity.  For 
what  shall  happen  in  future,  we  are  not  answerable.  Your  obser^ 
vation  was  just,  that  it  was  certainly  as  bad  policy,  where  they 


410  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

attempted  to  heal  our  differences  by  repealing  part  of  the  duties 
only,  as  it  is  bad  surgery  to  have  splinters  in  a  wound  which  must 
prevent  its  healing  or  in  time  occasion  it  to  open  afresh." 

The  Governor  had  already  refused  his  consent  to  a  bill, 
granting  a  salary  to  Franklin  as  agent  of  the  Assembly,  —  a 
course  which  he  persisted  in  to  the  last.  This  subject  is 
treated  in  the  letter,  which  holds  that,  if  whatever  was  to  be 
transacted  between  the  Assemblies  of  the  Colonies  and  the 
government  was  to  be  done  by  agents  appointed  by  and 
under  the  direction  of  the  three  branches,  it  would  be  utterly 
impracticable  for  an  Assembly  ever  to  lay  their  grievances 
before  their  sovereign. 

Other  letters  were  written  to  Franklin  during  the  year, 
but  this  alone  has  come  to  light.  A  month  afterwards  it 
was  published  by  Mr.  Adams  in  the  Boston  Gazette,*  as  was 
also  that  of  November,  1770.  Hutchinson  sent  the  papers 
to  England,  with  a  letter  to  Pownall. 

"  I  enclose  to  you,"  he  says,  "  Sir  Francis  Bernard's  newspapers, 
that  you  may  see  and  communicate  information  when  it  may  be 
proper.  Such  a  correspondence  between  the  House  and  their  agent 
will  keep  us  in  a  perpetual  flame.  The  heads  of  the  people  are  not 
without  apprehension  that  printing  their  letters  to  their  agent,  which 
refer  to  his  letters  to  them,  may  be  of  prejudice  to  him ;  but  they 
are  forced  to  take  every  measure  to  keep  up  the  spirit  of  opposition 
here.  The  Hou.se  never  ordered  these  letters  to  be  published,  but 
the  Clerk  [Samuel  Adams]  who  drew  the  letters,  and  who  draws 
most  of  the  seditious  papers  in  the  newspapers,  inserted  these 
among  the  rest.  I  doubt  whether  there  is  a  greater  incendiary  in 
the  King's  dominions,  or  a  man  of  greater  malignity  of  heart,  or 
who  less  scruples  any  measures  ever  so  criminal  to  accomplish  his 
purposes ;  and  I  think  I  do  him  no  injustice,  when  I  suppose  he 
wishes  the  destruction  of  every  friend  to  government  in  America. 
This  is  the  man  who  is  of  the  committee,  and  the  instar  omnium  with 
which  the  agent  [Dr.  Franklin]  corresponds,  and  from  which  he 
takes  his  directions  in  the  recess  of  the  Court.  The  doctrine  ad- 
vanced in  these  letters,  of  independence  upon  Parliament,  and  even 

*  See  the  Boston  Gazette  for  July  22  and  July  29,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  411 

upon  the  King,  to  whom  they  deny  the  right  of  supporting  or  even 
instructing  his  Governor,  must  rouse  the  people  of  England,  and 
they  will  sooner  or  later  express  their  indignation.,,  * 

Such  is  the  character  of  Samuel  Adams,  as  given  by  his 
enemy,  who  found  him  the  great  obstacle  in  the  path  of  tyr- 
anny,—  "the  all  in  all"  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly. 
As  an  offset  to  this  perversion  of  his  views  and  measures,  let 
us  turn  to  the  record  of  another  contemporary  writer,  the 
sister  of  James  Otis,  Mrs.  Mercy  Warren,  who  knew  and 
appreciated  his  greatness,  and  whose  husband,  James  War- 
ren of  Plymouth,  was  one  of  Adams's  stanchest  friends  and 
co-workers. 

"  Early  nurtured  in  the  principles  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
he  possessed  a  quick  understanding,  a  cool  head,  stern  manners,  a 
smooth  address,  and  a  Roman-like  firmness,  united  with  that  saga- 
city and  penetration  that  would  have  made  a  figure  in  a  conclave. 
He  was  at  the  same  time  liberal  in  opinion,  and  uniformly  devout ; 
social  with  men  of  all  denominations  ;  grave  in  deportment ;  placid, 
yet  severe ;  sober  and  indefatigable ;  calm  in  seasons  of  difficulty ; 
tranquil  and  unruffled  in  the  vortex  of  political  altercation  ;  too  firm 
to  be  intimidated,  too  haughty  for  condescension,  his  mind  was 
replete  with  resources  that  dissipated  fear,  and  extricated  in  the 
greatest  emergencies.  Thus  qualified,  he  stood  forth  early,  and  con- 
tinued firm  through  the  great  struggle,  and  may  justly  claim  a 
large  share  of  honor  due  to  that  spirit  of  energy  which  opposed  the 
measures  of  administration,  and  produced  the  Independence  of 
America.  Through  a  long  life  he  exhibited,  on  all  occasions,  an 
example  of  patriotism,  religion,  and  virtue,  honorary  to  the  human 
character."  f 

*  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  July,  1771.     Bancroft,  VI.  375,406.    Dr.  Cooper 
to  Franklin,  Nov.  10,  1770  (Franklin's  Works,  VIII.  98-100). 
t  Mrs.  Mercy  Warren's  History,  I.  211,  212. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Hutchinson  announces  Arbitrary  Instructions  received  from  the  King. — 
Adams  replies  for  the  Assembly.  —  The  Court  adjourned.  —  Arthur  Leo 
unjustly  suspects  Franklin.  —  He  afterwards  frankly  owns  his  Error.  — 
Arrival  of  the  Fleet. — Adams  counsels  Union  of  the  Colonies,  and  an 
Assemblage  of  Deputies.  —  His  Political  Essays  denying  the  Supreme 
Authority  of  Parliament. 

But  two  weeks  had  elapsed  after  the  adoption  of  Samuel 
Adams's  protest,  when  a  new  phase  in  the  governmental 
system  was  brought  to  light,  showing  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  protest,  drawing  the  line  between  the  just  uses  of  a  pre- 
rogative and  its  abuse,  had  need  to  be  insisted  upon.  Hutch- 
inson informed  the  Assembly  on  the  4th  of  July,  that,  in 
obedience  to  his  Majesty's  instructions,  he  could  not  here- 
after give  his  consent  to  the  annual  bills  levying  a  tax  upon 
the  incomes  of  crown  officers  in  the  Province.  The  tax  was 
trifling,  and  amounted  to  but  a  small  sum  in  the  aggregate, 
but  the  Governor,  in  defiance  of  law  and  ancient  usage,  neg- 
atived the  bill.  This  was  but  one  of  the  many  forms  in 
which  the  studied  art  of  British  politicians  had  determined 
to  secure  a  compliance  with  the  right  of  Parliament  to  raise 
a  revenue  in  America.  Mr.  Adams,  for  a  committee,  of 
which  James  Otis  was  nominally  the  chairman,  responded 
on  the  following  day.* 

"  The  reason  you  are  pleased  to  assign  for  withholding  your  assent 
to  the  tax  bill  is  surprising  and  alarming.  We  know  of  no  Commis- 
sioners of  his  Majesty's  Customs  nor  of  any  revenue  his  Majesty  has 
a  right  to  establish  in  North  America  ;  we  know  and  feel  a  tribute 
levied  and  extorted  from  those  who,  if  they  have  property,  have  a 
right  to  the  absolute  disposal  of  it. 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  404.  Journal  of  the  House,  July  5,  1771.  Bradford's  State 
Papers,  p.  307. 


July,  1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  413 

"  By  the  royal  charter  it  is  expressly  granted  that  the  General 
Assembly  shall  have  full  power  and  authority  to  impose  and  levy 
proportionable  and  reasonable  assessments,  rates,  and  taxes  upon 
the  estates  and  persons  of  all  and  every  the  proprietors  and  inhab- 
itants of  this  Province.  Hence  it  plainly  appears  that  the  power  of 
raising  and  levying  taxes  is  vested  in  the  General  Assembly  ;  and 
that  power  which  has  the  sole  right  of  raising  and  levying  taxes  has 
an  uncontrollable  right  to  order  and  direct  in  what  way  and  man- 
ner, and  upon  whom,  such  taxes  shall  be  raised  and  levied.  There- 
fore for  your  Excellency  to  withold  your  assent  to  this  bill,  merely 
by  force  of  instruction,  is  effectually  vacating  the  charter,  and  giving 
instructions  the  force  of  laws  within  this  Province.  And  we  are 
constrained  to  say,  that  your  Excellency's  present  determination  is 
to  be  governed  by  them,  though  this  should  be  the  consequence. 
We  must  further  observe,  that  such  a  doctrine,  if  established,  would 
render  the  representatives  of  a  free  people  mere  machines  ;  and  they 
would  be  reduced  to  this  fatal  alternative,  either  to  have  no  taxes 
levied  and  raised  at  all,  or  to  have  them  raised  and  levied  in  such 
way  and  manner  and  upon  those  only  whom  his  Majesty  pleases. 

"As  to  the  operation  of  law,  mentioned  in  your  Excellency's 
message,  the  law  of  this  Province,  at  least  in  this  respect,  has 
rightly  operated  as  it  ever  ought  to.  And  we  know  no  reason  nor 
any  semblance  of  reason  why  the  Commissioners,  their  superior  or 
subordinate  officers,  who  are  equally  protected  with  the  other  inhab- 
itants, should  be  exempted  from  paying  their  full  proportion  of 
taxes  for  the  support  of  government  within  this  Province." 

The  session  was  then  brought  to  a  close  with  a  message  to 
the  two  Houses,  from  the  Governor,  already  referred  to, 
taking  ground  against  the  protest  of  the  Assembly.  The 
Court  was  adjourned  to  September  14,  to  meet  at  Cam- 
bridge ;  but  further  prorogations  followed,  and  no  meeting 
took  place  until  the  spring  of  the  next  year. 

Mr.  Adams  immediately  turned  to  the  press,  resolved  that 
the  aim  of  government  to  conceal  the  insidious  steps  of  tyr- 
anny with  an  appearance  of  public  satisfaction  should  not 
succeed.  Particularly  he  endeavored  to  preserve  a  union 
of  sentiment  among  the  Colonies,  without  which  the  efforts 


414  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

of  Massachusetts  would  prove  futile.*  He  continued  his  cor- 
respondence with  Arthur  Lee  in  London,  whose  last  letter, 
dated  in  March,  he  had  lately  received.  After,  alluding  to 
the  recent  political  disturbances  in  London,  and  the  libera- 
tion from  imprisonment  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  he  continues :  — 

"  Mr.  Hume,  if  I  mistake  not,  somewhere  says,  that  if  James  the 
Second  had  had  the  benefit  of  the  riot  act  and  such  a  standing  army 
as  has  been  granted  since  his  time,  it  would  have  been  impracticable 
for  the  nation  to  have  wrought  its  own  delivery  and  establish  the 
constitution  of  '88.  If  the  people  have  put  it  in  the  power  of  a 
wicked  and  corrupt  Ministry  to  make  themselves  absolute  lords  and 
tyrants  over  them,  by  means  of  a  standing  army,  we  may  at  present 
pity  them  under  the  misfortune ;  but  future  historians  will  record 
the  story  with  astonishment  and  indignation,  and  posterity,  who  will 
share  in  the  fatal  effects  of  their  folly  and  treachery,  will  accuse 
them.  Has  there  not,  for  a  long  time  past,  been  reason  to  appre- 
hend the  designs  of  a  restless  faction  to  oppress  the  nation ;  and,  the 
more  easily  to  effect  their  purposes,  to  render  the  King's  government 
obnoxious,  and,  if  possible,  put  an  end  to  a  family  which  has  hereto- 
fore supported  the  rights  of  the  nation,  its  happiness,  and  grandeur  ? 

"In  this  Colony  we  are  every  day  experiencing  the  miserable 
effects  of  arbitrary  power.  The  people  are  paying  the  unrighteous 
tribute  (I  wish  I  could  say  they  were  groaning  under  it,  for  that 
would  seem  as  if  they  felt  they  are  submitting  to  it),  in  hopes  that 
the  nation  will  at  length  revert  to  justice.  But  before  that  time 
comes,  it  is  to  be  feared  they  will  be  so  accustomed  to  bondage  as 
to  forget  they  were  ever  free."  f 

Nearly  at  the  same  time  Adams  received  a  letter  from 
Lee,  informing  him  of  the  intention  of  Hillsborough,  as 
advised  by  Bernard,  to  change  the  mode  of  electing  the 
Council,  but  the  Port  Egremont  difficulties  with  Spain  had 
temporarily  delayed  it. 

"  I  am  the  more  suspicious,"  said  Mr.  Lee,  "  that  the  measure  is 

*  Bancroft  VI.  407.     Barry's  Massachusetts,  II.  443. 
t  Adams  to  Lee,  July  31,  1771    (E.   H.  Lee's  Life  of  Arthur  Lee,  II. 
174,  175). 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  415 

suspended  only,  that  I  find  Lord  Hillsborough  takes  great  pains  to 
persuade  and  to  assure  your  countrymen  that,  as  long  as  they  con- 
tinue quiet,  nothing  will  be  done  to  their  prejudice.  As  treachery 
and  imposition  is  his  forte,  there  is  most  danger  when  his  professions 
are  warmest.  Besides,  as  he  certainly  intended  mischief,  he  is  more 
strongly  induced  to  exercise  those  arts,  in  order  to  quiet  the  alarm 
which  such  an  intention  going  forth  would  necessarily  produce.  He 
possesses,  too,  a  perverse  spirit,  that  thinks  he  is  doing  nothing  if 
he  is  not  doing  mischief.  You  may  conceive,  sir,  whether  such  a 
temper,  perpetually  acted  upon  by  the  implacable  hatred  of  Ber- 
nard, is  likely  to  abandon  a  favorite  system  of  tyranny  and  revenge 
without  any  apparent  reason.  I  am  therefore  of  opinion  that  the 
fire  still  subsists,  though  covered  with  deceitful  ashes ;  and  such,  I 
can  assure  you,  are  the  sentiments  of  the  best  friend  you  have  here, 
Col.  BarreV'* 

It  was  in  this  letter  that  Mr.  Lee  expressed  those  suspi- 
cions of  Dr.  Franklin's  course  as  agent  to  which  allusion 
has  already  been  made.  In  his  zeal,  he  mistook  the  objects 
and  policy  of  Franklin,  and  construed  his  efforts  towards 
re-establishing  a  friendly  feeling  between  the  mother  country 
and  the  Colonies  into  "  temporizing  in  American  affairs," 
and  he  believed  him  to  be  either  the  instrument  or  the  dupe 
of  Hillsborough's  treachery.  "  I  feel  it  not  a  little  disagree- 
able," he  continues,  "  to  speak  my  sentiments  of  Dr.  Frank- 
lin, as  your  generous  confidence  has  placed  me  in  the  light 
of  a  rival  to  him.  But  I  am  so  far  from  being  influenced 
by  selfish  motives,  that,  were  the  service  of  the  Colony  ten 
times  greater,  I  would  perform  it  for  nothing,  rather  than 
you  and  America,  at  a  time  like  this,  should  be  betrayed  by 
a  man  who  it  is  hardly  in  the  nature  of  things  to  suppose 
can  be  faithful  to  his  trust."  f  But  afterwards,  as  Lee  be- 
came more  familiar  with  Franklin,  he  honestly  changed  his 
opinion,  and  during  Weddeburne's  attack  upon  the  agent 
before  the  Privy  Council,  Lee  assisted  with  his  eloquence  in 
reply.     "  Dr.  Franklin,"  he  says,  "  bore  it  all  with  a  firm- 

*  Lee  to  Adams,  June  10,  1771  (Life  of  Lee,  I.  215-219).  t  Ibid. 


416  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [Aug. 

ness  and  equanimity  which  conscious  integrity  can  alone 
inspire."  And  as  the  Ministry  deprived  Franklin  o£  his 
office  as  Postmaster  of  America,  Lee  adds  :  "  The  same  cause 
which  renders  him  odious  to  them  must  endear  him  to 
you."  * 

During  the  month  of  August  the  patriots  had  reason  to 
see  that  the  policy  of  coercion,  though  in  abeyance  for  a 
while,  had  not  been  abandoned.  On  the  12th  they  beheld  a 
fleet  of  twelve  war  vessels,  carrying  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
two  guns,. anchor  in  the  harbor.  This  was  in  pursuance  of 
the  order  making  Boston  the  rendezvous  of  the  North  Amer- 
ican fleet ;  and  although  the  threatened  trouble  with  Spain 
was  alleged  as  a  reason  for  this  extraordinary  armament,  it 
was  evident  that  an  intimidation  of  the  people  was  intended. 
The  danger  was  every  day  drawing  nearer,  and  as  the  relent- 
less policy  discovered  itself,  Samuel  Adams  became  more  ex- 
plicit, and  sounded  the  alarm  to  his  countrymen.  Review- 
ing the  principles  which  had  actuated  the  British  American 
Provinces,  since  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act,  in  successful 
struggles  against  slavery,  "  which,"  says  the  writer,  "  will 
undoubtedly  be  recorded  by  future  historians  to  their  im- 
mortal honor,"  he  warns  them  against  the  fatal  delusion  that 
the  lurking  poison  was  eradicated,  while  any  article  remained 
under  the  ban  of  taxation. 

"  It  is  by  no  means  sufficient  to  console  us,  that  the  duty  is  re- 
duced to  the  single  article  of  tea,  which,  by  the  way,  is  not  a  fact ; 
but  if  it  should  be  admitted,  it  is  because  the  Parliament  for  the 
present  are  pleased  to  demand  no  more  of  us.  Should  we  acqui- 
esce in  their  taking  three  pence  only  because  they  please,  we  at 
least  tacitly  consent  that  they  should  have  the  sovereign  control  of 
our  purses,  and  when  they  please  they  will  claim  an  equal  right, 
and  perhaps  plead  a  precedent  for  it,  to  take  a  shilling  or  a  pound. 
At  present  we  have  the  remedy  in  our  own  hands.  We  can  easily 
avoid  paying  the  tribute  by  abstaining  from  the  use  of  those  articles 
by  which  it  is  extorted  from  us."  f 

*  Lee  to  Adams,  Feb.  8,  1774  (Life  of  Lee,  I.  240). 
t  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  9,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  417 

This  advice  he  carried  into  practice  in  his  own  house- 
hold. Tea  was  interdicted  almost  from  the  first  hint  that 
the  administration  would  persist  in  taxing  that  one  article. 
Nor  did  he  stop  here.  He  showed  a  marked  preference  for 
all  things  of  special  American  manufacture.  He  neither 
wore  English  cloth  himself,  nor  permitted  any  article  of 
English  industry  to  be  used  in  his  family  if  it  could  possi- 
bly be  avoided.  "  It  behooves  every  American,"  he  used  to 
say,  "  to  encourage  home  manufactures,  that  our  oppressors 
may  feel  through  their  pockets  the  effects  of  their  blind  folly." 
It  became  at  length  the  custom  among  the  ladies  of  Boston 
to  make  up  spinning  parties  at  their  houses  on  alternate 
nights ;  and  at  these  reunions  there  was  an  entire  abstinence 
from  tea,  while,  as  the  work  went  on,  the  discussion  of  the 
all-engrossing  topics  of  the  day  was  varied  with  singing  and 
playing  on  the  spinnet,  which  then  held  the  place  of  the 
piano-forte. 

Again,  upon  the  infringements  of  the  charter  of  Massa- 
chusetts by  the  Ministry,  in  arbitrarily  dissolving  and  con- 
trolling the  Assembly :  — 

"The  charter  may  be  taken  away  in  parts,  as  well  as  in  the 
whole ;  and  it  seems  by  some  later  ministerial  mandates  and  meas- 
ures as  if  there  was  a  design  to  deprive  us  of  our  charter  rights  by 
degrees.  An  attempt  upon  the  whole,  by  one  stroke,  would  perhaps 
be  thought  too  bold  an  undertaking.  His  Lordship  could  not  indeed 
have  chosen  a  more  effectual  step  to  deprive  us  of  the  whole  bene- 
fit of  a  free  constitution,  than  by  attempting  to  control  the  debates 
and  determinations  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  which  ought 
forever  to  be  free,  and  suspending  the  legislative  power  of  the 
Province  for  their  refusing  to  obey  any  mandate,  especially  when 
it  was  not  only  contrary  to  their  judgments  and  consciences,  but,  as 
it  appeared  to  them,  absurd.  It  is  a  pitiful  constitution  indeed, 
which,  so  far  from  being  fixed  and  permanent  as  it  should  be, 
sacred  and  unalterable  in  the  hands  of  those  where  the  community 
has  placed  it,  depends  entirely  upon  the  breath  of  a  minister  or  of 

*  "  Candidas,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  16,  1771. 
vol.  i.  27 


418  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept. 

any  man.  But  it  is  to  be  feared  from  this,  as  well  as  other  more 
recent  instances,  that  there  is  a  design  to  raze  the  foundations  of 
the  Constitutions  of  these  Colonies,  and  place  them  upon  this  preca- 
rious and  sandy  foundation."  * 

Arthur  Lee  had  hinted  to  him  in  one  of  his  letters  the 
possibility  of  an  impeachment  of  the  Ministry  at  some  future 
time,  to  which  Mr.  Adams  replies :  — 

"  I  was  pleased  with  the  petition  and  remonstrance  of  the  city  of 
London.  But  are  not  the  Ministry  lost  to  all  sensibility  ?  Do  they 
not,  like  the  Egyptian  tyrant,  harden  their  hearts  against  the  just 
complaints  of  the  people?  May  God  grant  the  nation  that  pru- 
dence, strength,  and  fortitude  by  which  they  may  be  animated  to 
maintain  their  own  liberties  at  all  events !  By  your  last  letter 
you  resolve  wisely,  *  if  ever  the  spirit  of  impeaching  should  rise  in 
Britain.'  But  how  is  it  possible  such  a  spirit  should  rise?  In 
all  former  struggles  the  House  of  Commons  has  naturally  taken 
sides  with  the  people  against  oppressing  ministers  and  favorites. 
Whether  this  is  the  case  at  present  or  not,  is  no  secret  to  the 
world.  We  have  indeed  heard  little  of  the  business  of  impeaching 
since  the  Revolution ;  its  corrupt  ministerial  influence  has  been 
gradually  and  too  insensibly  increasing  since  that  era,  and  is  now 
become  so  powerful  as  to  render  it  impracticable  to  have  one  cap- 
ital object  of  the  people's  just  vengeance  impeached. 

"If  it  should  ever  become  a  practicable  thing  to  impeach  a 
corrupt  administration,  I  hope  that  minister  who  advised  to  the 
introduction  of  an  arbitrary  government  into  America  will  not  be 
overlooked.  Such  a  victim,  I  imagine,  will  make  a  figure  equal  to 
Lord  Strafford  in  the  reign  of  Charles,  or  many  others  in  future 
times."  f 

The  arrival  of  the  fleet  convinced  Mr.  Adams  that  the 
time  for  remonstrances  and  patriotic  appeals  to  the  people 
was  past,  and  he  revolved  within  him  a  project  for  definite 
action.     A  year  passed  before  it  was  brought  to  maturity, 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Sept.  23,  1771. 
t  Adams  to  Lee,  Sept.  27,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  419 

but  then  it  kindled  a  flame  which  was  never  subdued  until 
American  liberty  was  acknowledged.  The  Society  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights  in  England  was  in  active  existence  for  the 
support  of  principles  as  dear  to  that  part  of  the  Kingdom  as 
were  those  maintained  by  their  brethren  in  America. 

"  The  grievances  of  Britain,"  he  wrote  to  Arthur  Lee,  "  as  well 
as  ours,  as  you  observe,  spring  from,  the  same  root  of  bitterness, 
and  are  of  the  same  pernicious  growth.  The  union  of  Britain  and 
America  is  therefore  by  all  means  to  be  cultivated.  If  in  every 
Colony  societies  should  be  formed  out  of  the  most  respectable  in- 
habitants, similar  to  that  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  who  should  once  in 
the  year  meet  by  their  deputies,  and  correspond  with  such  a  society 
in  London,  would  it  not  effectually  promote  such  a  union  ?  And 
if  it  was  conducted  with  a  proper  spirit,  would  it  not  afford  sufficient 
reason  for  the  enemies  of  our  common  liberty,  however  exalted,  to 
tremble  ?  This  is  a  sudden  thought,  and  drops  undigested  from  my 
pen.  It  would  be  an  arduous  task  for  any  man  to  undertake  to 
awaken  a  sufficient  number  in  the  Colonies  to  so  grand  an  under- 
taking.    Nothing  however  is  to  be  despaired  of."  * 

"  The  body  of  the  people  are  uneasy  at  the  large  strides  that  are 
made  and  making  towards  an  absolute  tyranny.  Many  are  alarmed, 
but  are  of  different  sentiments  with  regard  to  the  next  step  to  be 
taken.  Some,  indeed,  think  that  every  step  has  already  been  taken 
but  one.  The  ultima  ratio  would  require  prudence,  unanimity,  for- 
titude. The  conspirators  against  our  liberties  are  employing  all 
their  influence  to  divide  the  people ;  partly  by  intimidating  them, 
for  which  purpose  there  is  a  fleet  with  an  admiral  lying  within  gun- 
shot of  the  town,  and  the  capital  fort  within  three  miles  of  it  is  gar- 
risoned by  the  King's  troops ;  and  partly  by  arts  and  intrigue, 
flattering  those  who  are  pleased  with  flattery,  forming  connections 
with  them,  introducing  levity,  luxury,  and  indolence,  and  assuring 
them  that  if  they  are  quiet  the  Ministry  will  alter  their  measures. 
This  is  the  general  appearance  of  things  here,  while  the  people  are 
anxiously  waiting  for  some  happy  event  from  your  side  the  water. 
For  my  own  part,  I  confess,  I  have  no  great  expectation  from 
thence.  I  have  long  been  of  opinion  that  America  herself,  under 
God,  must  finally  work  out  her  own  salvation."  f 

*  Adams  to  Lee,  Sept.  27,  1771.  t  Adams  to  Lee,  Oct.  31,  1771. 


420  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

His  political  writings  at  this  time  were  very  numerous, 
and  embraced  all  the  subjects  in  controversy.  In  private 
letters  abroad,  and  among  the  other  Colonies,  and  in  the 
press,  he  continually  rang  the  alarm-bell,  and  combated 
"  the  disposition  in  all  the  Colonies  to  let  the  controversy 
with  the  Kingdom  subside,"  *  of  which  Hutchinson  was 
writing  home  with  great  satisfaction.  To  give  more  than 
occasional  extracts  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  character 
of  these  volumes.  One  letter  of  considerable  length  thus 
concludes :  — 

"  We  are  told  that  the  justices  of  the  Superior  Court  are  also  to 
receive  fixed  salaries  out  of  this  American  revenue  !  Is  it  possible 
to  form  an  idea  of  slavery  more  complete,  more  miserable,  more  dis- 
graceful, than  that  of  a  people  where  justice  is  administered,  govern- 
ment exercised,  and  a  standing  army  maintained  at  the  expense  of 
the  people,  and  yet  without  the  least  dependence  upon  them  ?  If 
we  can  find  no  relief  from  this  infamous  situation,  —  I  repeat  it,  if 
we  can  find  no  relief  from  this  infamous  situation,  —  let  the  Ministry, 
who  have  stripped  us  of  our  property  and  liberty,  deprive  us  of  our 
understanding  too,  that,  unconscious  of  what  we  have  been  or  are, 
and  ungoaded  by  tormenting  reflections,  we  may  tamely  bow  down 
our  necks  with  all  the  stupid  serenity  of  servitude  to  any  drudgery 
which  our  lords  and  masters  may  please  to  command.  I  appeal  to 
the  common  sense  of  mankind  to  what  a  state  of  infamy  and  misery 
must  a  people  be  reduced  to  have  a  Governor  by  the  sole  appoint- 
ment of  the  Crown,  under  the  absolute  control  of  a  weak  and  arbi- 
trary minister,  to  whose  dictates  he  is  to  yield  unlimited  obedience 
or  forfeit  his  political  existence,  while  he  is  to  be  supported  at  the 
expense  of  the  people  by  virtue  of  an  authority  claimed  by  strangers 
to  oblige  them  to  contribute  for  him  such  an  annual  stipend,  however 
unbounded,  as  the  Crown  shall  be  advised  to  order  ?  If  this  is  not 
a  state  of  despotism,  what  is  ?  Could  such  a  Governor,  by  all  the 
arts  of  persuasion,  prevail  upon  a  people  to  be  quiet  and  contented 
under  such  a  mode  of  government,  his  noble  patron  might  spare 
himself  the  trouble  of  getting  their  charter  vacated  by  a  formal  de- 
cision of  Parliament  or  in  the  tedious  process  of  law.     Whenever 

*  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  Oct.  14, 1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  421 

the  relentless  enemies  of  America  shall  have  completed  their 
system,  which  they  are  still,  though  more  silently,  pursuing  by 
subtle  arts,  deep  dissimulation,  and  manners  calculated  to  deceive, 
our  condition  will  then  be  more  humiliating  and  miserable,  and 
perhaps  more  inextricable  too,  than  that  of  the  people  of  England 
in  the  infamous  reigns  of  the  Stuarts,  which  blacken  the  pages  of 
history.* 

Another  of  these  essays,  the  original  draft  of  which,  in 
the  handwriting  of  Mr.  Adams,  has  been  preserved,!  was 
sent  by  the  Governor  to  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough,  whom  he 
always  supplied  with  files  of  the  newspapers,  and  he  adds  as 
a  postscript  to  his  letter,  "  *  Candidus,'  in  the  late  papers,  is 
Adams  the  Representative."  %  The  paper  was  adapted,  if 
anything  would,  to  dispel  the  "quiet"  upon  which  Hutch- 
inson was  felicitating  himself,  and  may  here  be  given  entire 
as  a  specimen  of  the  series  of  u  Candidus,"  extending  through 
the  files  of  the  Gazette  from  the  summer  of  1771  to  the  close 
of  the  following  year.  Adams  at  times  changed  the  signa- 
ture, but  generally  adhered  to  the  one  now  used  for  several 
years.  These  essays  are  varied  to  suit  'the  circumstances 
of  the  moment,  sometimes  being  devoted  to  close  and  argu- 
mentative reasoning  upon  the  powers  of  Parliament,  and 
exhibiting  an  acquaintance  with  the  opinions  of  lawyers 
and  writers  on  government,  who  are  extensively  quoted ; 
and  at  others  rising  into  fervid  appeals  to  the  sensibility 
and  patriotism  of  his  countrymen,  arousing  them  to  the  fact 
that  the  policy  of  their  tyrants  was  in  reality  more  alarm- 
ing when  covert  and  insidious  than  when  open  and  over- 
bearing. 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  7,  1771. 

t  The  better  to  insure  secrecy  as  to  authorship,  and  prevent  his  hand- 
writing from  getting  by  any  accident  into  the  possession  of  his  enemies,  Mr. 
Adams  sometimes  took  the  precaution  of  having  the  original  drafts  of  his  com- 
positions returned  to  his  study  from  the  printing  office.  They  still  bear  the 
marks  of  handling  by  the  printer,  and  the  interlineations  and  erasures  by  their 
author. 

X  Hutchinson  to  Hillsborough,  Oct.  15,  1771. 


422  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct 

"  *  Ambition  saw  that  stooping  Rome  could  bear 
A  master,  nor  had  virtue  to  be  free/ 

"  I  believe  that  no  people  ever  yet  groaned  under  the  heavy  yoke 
of  slavery  but  when  they  deserved  it.  This  may  be  called  a  severe 
censure  upon  by  far  the  greatest  part  of  the  nations  in  the  world 
who  are  involved  in  the  miseries  of  servitude.  But  however  they 
may  be  thought  by  some  to  deserve  commiseration,  the  censure  is 
just.  Zuinglius,  one  of  the  first  reformers,  in  his  friendly  admoni- 
tion to  the  republic  of  the  Switzers,  discourses  much  of  his  coun- 
trymen's throwing  off  the  yoke.  He  says  that  they  who  lie  under 
oppression  deserve  what  they  suffer  and  a  great  deal  more,  and  he 
bids  them  perish  with  their  oppressors.  The  truth  is,  all  might  be 
free,  if  they  valued  freedom  and  defended  it  as  they  ought.  Is  it 
possible  that  millions  could  be  enslaved  by  a  few,  which  is  a  notori- 
ous fact,  if  all  possessed  the  independent  spirit  of  Brutus,  who,  to  his 
immortal  honor,  expelled  the  proud  tyrant  of  Rome  and  his  '  royal 
and  rebellious  race  '  ?  If,  therefore,  a  people  will  not  be  free,  if  they 
have  not  virtue  enough  to  maintain  their  liberty  against  a  presumptu- 
ous invader,  they  deserve  no  pity,  and  are  to  be  treated  with  contempt 
and  ignominy.  Had  not  Caesar  seen  that  Rome  was  ready  to  stoop 
he  would  not  have  dared  to  make  himself  the  master  of  that  once 
brave  people.  He  was,  indeed,  as  a  great  writer  observes,  a  smooth 
and  subtle  tyrant,  who  led  them  gently  into  slavery ;  '  and  on  his 
brow  o'er  daring  vice,  deluding  virtue  smiled.'  By  pretending  to 
be  the  people's  greatest  friend,  he  gained  the  ascendency  over  them ; 
by  beguiling  arts,  hypocrisy,  and  flattery,  which  are  often  more  fatal 
than  the  sword,  he  obtained  that  supreme  power  which  his  ambi- 
tious soul  had  long  thirsted  for.  The  people  were  finally  prevailed 
upon  to  consent  to  their  own  ruin.  By  the  force  of  persuasion,  or 
rather  by  cajoling  arts  and  tricks,  always  made  use  of  by  men  who 
have  ambitious  views,  they  enacted  their  Lex  Begia,  whereby  quod 
placuit  principi  legis  habuit  vigorem,  that  is,  the  will  and  pleasure 
of  the  prince  had  the  force  of  law.  His  minions  had  taken  infinite 
pains  to  paint  to  their  imaginations  the  godlike  virtues  of  Caesar. 
They  first  persuaded  them  to  believe  that  he  was  a  deity,  and  then 
to  sacrifice  to  him  those  rights  and  liberties  which  their  ancestors 
had  so  long  maintained  with  unexampled  bravery  and  with  blood 
and  treasure.  By  this  act  they  fixed  a  precedent  fatal  to  all  poster- 
ity.    The  Roman  people  afterwards,  influenced  no  doubt  by  this 


1771.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  423 

pernicious  example,  renewed  it  to  his  successors,  not  at  the  end  of 
every  ten  years,  but  for  life.  They  transferred  all  their  right  and 
power  to  Charles  the  Great.  In  eum  transtulit  omne  suum  jus  et 
potestatem.  Thus  they  voluntarily  and  ignominously  surrendered 
their  own  liberty,  and  exchanged  a  free  constitution  for  a  tyranny. 

"  It  is  not  my  design  to  form  a  comparison  between  the  state  of 
this  country  now  and  that  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  those  dregs  of 

time,  or  between  the  disposition  of  Caesar  and  that  of .     The 

comparison,  I  confess,  would  not,  in  all  its  parts,  hold  good.  The 
tyrant  of  Rome,  to  do  him  justice,  had  learning,  courage,  and  great 
abilities.  It  behooves  us,  however,  to  awake,  and  advert  to  the 
danger  we  are  in.  The  tragedy  of  American  freedom,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  is  nearly  completed.  A  tyranny  seems  to  be  at  the  very 
door.  It  is  to  little  purpose,  then,  to  go  about  coolly  to  rehearse  the 
gradual  steps  that  have  been  taken,  the  means  that  have  been  used, 
and  the  instruments  employed  to  encompass  the  ruin  of  the  public 
liberty.  We  know  them  and  we  detest  them.  But  what  will  this 
avail,  if  we  have  not  courage  and  resolution  to  prevent  the  com- 
pletion of  their  system  ? 

"  Our  enemies  would  fain  have  us  lie  down  on  the  bed  of  sloth 
and  security,  and  persuade  ourselves  that  there  is  no  danger.  They 
are  daily  administering  the  opiate  with  multiplied  arts  and  delu- 
sions, and  I  am  sorry  to  observe  that  the  gilded  pill  is  so  alluring  ^fy/~z>* 
to  some  who  call  themselves  the  friends  of  liberty.  But  is  there  no^ 
danger  when  the  very  foundations  of  our  civil  Constitution  tremble  ? 
"When  an  attempt  was  first  made  to  disturb  the  corner-stone  of  the 
fabric,  we  were  universally  and  justly  alarmed.  And  can  we  be 
cool  spectators  when  we  see  it  already  removed  from  its  place? 
With  what  resentment  and  indignation  did  we  first  receive  the  intel- 
ligence of  a  design  to  make  us  tributary,  not  to  natural  enemies, 
but  infinitely  more  humiliating,  to  fellow-subjects !  And  yet,  with 
unparalleled  insolence,  we  are  told  to  be  quiet  when  we  see  that 
very  money  which  is  torn  from  us  by  lawless  force  made  use  of  still 
further  to  oppose  us,  to  feed  and  pamper  a  set  of  infamous  wretches 
who  swarm  like  the  locusts  of  Egypt,  and  some  of  them  expect  to 
revel  in  wealth  and  riot  on  the  spoils  of  our  country.  Is  it  a  time 
for  us  to  sleep  when  our  free  government  is  essentially  changed,  and 
a  new  one  is  forming  upon  a  quite  different  system  ?  A  govern- 
ment without  the  least  dependence  on  the  people,  —  a  government 


424  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

under  the  absolute  control  of  a  minister  of  state,  upon  whose  sover- 
eign dictates  is  to  depend  not  only  the  time  when,  and  the  place 
where,  the  Legislative  Assembly  shall  sit,  but  whether  it  shall  sit 
at  all ;  and  if  it  is  allowed  to  meet,  it  shall  be  liable  immediately  to 
be  thrown  out  of  existence,  if  in  any  one  point  it  fails  in  obedience 
to  his  arbitrary  mandates. 

"  Have  we  not  already  seen  specimens  of  what  we  are  to  expect 
under  such  a  government,  in  the  instructions  which  Mr.  Hutchinson 
has  received,  and  which  he  has  publicly  avowed  and  declared  he  is 
bound  to  obey  ?  By  one  he  is  to  refuse  his  assent  to  a  tax  bill  un- 
less the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs  and  other  favorites  are 
exempted ;  and  if  these  may  be  freed  from  taxes  by  the  order  of  a 
minister,  may  not  all  his  tools  and  drudges,  or  any  others  who  are 
subservient  to  his  designs,  expect  the  same  indulgence  ?  By  another, 
he  is  forbid  to  pass  a  grant  of  the  Assembly  to  any  agent  but  one  to 
whose  election  he  has  given  his  consent ;  which  is,  in  effect,  to  put 
it  out  of  our  power  to  take  the  necessary  and  legal  steps  for  the  re- 
dress of  those  grievances  which  we  suffer  by  the  arts  and  machina- 
tions of  ministers  and  their  minions  here.  What  difference  is  there 
between  the  present  state  of  this  Province,  which  in  course  will  be 
the  deplorable  state  of  America,  and  that  of  Rome  under  the  law 
before  mentioned  ?  The  difference  is  only  this,  that  they  gave  their 
formal  consent  to  the  change,  which  we  have  not  yet  done.  But  let 
us  be  upon  our  guard  against  even  a  negative  submission,  for,  agree- 
able to  the  sentiments  of  a  celebrated  writer,  who  thoroughly  under- 
stood his  subject,  if  we  are  voluntarily  silent  as  the  conspirators 
would  have  us  to  be,  it  will  be  considered  as  an  approbation  of  the 
change.  '  By  the  fundamental  laws  of  England  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament,  in  concert  with  the  King,  exercise  the  legislative  power ; 
but  if  the  two  Houses  should  be  so  infatuated  as  to  resolve  to  sup- 
press their  powers,  and  invest  the  King  with  the  full  and  absolute 
government,  certainly  the  nation  would  not  suffer  it ! '  And  if  a 
minister  shall  usurp  the  supreme  and  absolute  government  of  Amer- 
ica, and  set  up  his  instructions  as  laws  in  the  Colonies,  and  their 
governors  shall  be  so  weak  or  so  wicked  as,  for  the  sake  of  keeping 
their  places,  to  be  made  the  instruments  in  putting  them  in  execu- 
tion, who  will  presume  to  say  that  the  people  have  not  a  right,  or 
that  it  is  not  their  indispensable  duty  to  God  and  their  country,  by 
all  rational  means  in  their  power,  to  resist  them ! 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  425 

u  Be  firm,  my  friends,  nor  let  unmanly  sloth 
Twine  round  your  hearts  indissoluble  chains ; 
Ne'er  yet  by  force  was  freedom  overcome, 
Unless  corruption  first  dejects  the  pride 
And  guardian  vigor  of  the  free  born  soul ; 
All  crude  attempts  of  violence  are  vain. 

Determined  hold 
Your  independence  ;  for,  that  once  destroyed, 
Unfounded  freedom  is  a  morning  dream/ 

"  The  liberties  of  our  country,  the  freedom  of  our  civil  Constitu- 
tion are  worth  defending  at  all  hazards ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  de- 
fend .them  against  all  attacks.  We  have  received  them  as  a  fair 
inheritance  from  our  worthy  ancestors.  They  purchased  them  for 
us  with  toil,  and  danger,  and  expense  of  treasure  and  blood,  and 
transmitted  them  to  us  with  care  and  diligence.  It  will  bring  an 
everlasting  mark  of  infamy  on  the  present  generation,  enlightened 
as  it  is,  if  we  should  suffer  them  to  be  wrested  from  us  by  violence 
without  a  struggle,  or  be  cheated  out  of  them  by  the  artifices  of  false 
and  designing  men.  Of  the  latter,  we  are  in  most  danger  at  pres- 
ent. Let  us  therefore  be  aware  of  it.  Let  us  contemplate  our  fore- 
fathers and  posterity,  and  resolve  to  maintain  the  rights  bequeathed 
to  us  from  the  former  for  the  sake  of  the  latter.  Instead  of  sitting 
down  satisfied  with  the  efforts  we  have  already  made,  which  is  the 
wish  of  our  enemies,  the  necessity  of  the  times  more  than  ever  calls 
for  our  utmost  circumspection,  deliberation,  fortitude,  and  persever- 
ance. Let  us  remember  that '  if  we  suffer  tamely  a  lawless  attack 
upon  our  liberty,  we  encourage  it,  and  involve  others  in  our  doom  ! ' 
It  is  a  very  serious  consideration,  which  should  deeply  impress  our 
minds,  that  millions  yet  unborn  may  be  the  miserable  sharers  in  the 

evmt!  "CAtonms.- 

The  extent  of  the  parliamentary  power  over  the  Colonies 
was  a  subject  which  had  not  yet  been  discussed  in  the  public 
press.  The  proper  consideration  of  it  required  an  extensive 
reading  of  writers  on  government,  which  few  in  the  Colony 
possessed,  and  the  Governor  had  carefully  avoided  introduc- 
ing the  question  into  any  of  his  messages,  probably  fearing 
that  any  assertions  of  his  would  be  considered  as  calling  for 

*  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  14,  1771. 


4 


426  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Oct. 


a  reply  on  the  part  of  the  House,  and  that  this  response 
would  adduce  all  possible  proofs  against  the  assumed  suprem- 
acy. Most  of  the  writers  on  the  side  of  liberty  had  confined 
their  remarks  to  denunciations  of  the  measures  of  the  gov- 
ernment and  appeals  to  the  patriotic  sentiments  of  their 
countrymen.  Mr.  Adams,  as  we  have  seen,  had  for  a  long 
time  explicitly  denied  the  right  of  the  Ministry  or  Parlia- 
ment to  impose  taxes  upon  the  Colonists  or  to  assume  con- 
trol of  their  Legislature  ;  but  the  complete  denial  of  their 
authority  had  never  been  made.  He  had  been  an  earnest 
reader  of  all  the  works  that  could  be  obtained  to  throw  light 
on  the  subject,  for  the  purpose  of  fortifying  his  positions 
whenever  it  might  be  neceesary  to  consider  it  in  the  House. 
He  had  been,  in  fact,  seeking  for  an  opportunity  to  raise  this 
question  in  the  Legislature,  but  he  warily  avoided  precipi- 
tancy, and  bided  his  time.  In  1765,  under  the  excitement 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  Legislature,  by  the  pen  of  Samuel 
Adams,  had  asserted  that  there  were  limits  to  parliamentary 
authority  and  denied  the  necessity  of  submission  to  an  act 
as  a  preliminary  to  its  repeal.*  The  opportunity  to  raise 
this  momentous  question  in  the  House  did  not  offer  until 
January,  1773,  when  he  conducted  the  memorable  and  de- 
cisive controversy  with  the  Governor  on  that  subject,  which 
was  thenceforth  never  revived  by  the  servants  of  the  Crown. 
But  preparatory  to  that  contest,  which  his  penetration  dis- 
cerned to  be  at  no  great  distance,  he  opened  the  discussion 
in  an  essay,  of  which  the  autograph  manuscript  is  yet  entire, 
published  in  the  Boston  Gazette.  It  embodied  the  main 
points  of  the  subsequent  controversy,  and  was  followed  by 
other  articles  of  the  same  tenor  in  the  following  year.  It  is 
evident  that,  from  the  fall  of  1771,  he  was  desirous_of  having 
the  discussion  of  parliamentary__authorrty  1>egun,  as  an  ac- 

*  As  early  as  1758,  Mr.  Adams  had  denied  the  right  of  Parliament  to 
interfere  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Colony,  and  upon  that  had  based  his 
opposition  to  the  seizure  of  his  father's  estate.  The  germ  of  the  idea  was 
exhibited  in  his  college  thesis  in  1743. 


1771.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   ADAMS.  427 

companying  measure  with  the  Committee  of  Correspondence, 
with  which  he  determined  to  arouse  anew  the  spirit  of  the 
Province.  Hutchinson,  who  instantly  saw  the  danger,  al- 
ready anticipated  and  predicted  the  impending  contest,  but 
it  was  not  until  Mr.  Adams  in  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colo- 
nists," in  November,  1772,  had  even  more  plainly  denied 
the  authority  of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  to  make 
and  establish  laws  for  the  Province,*  that  the  Governor 
deemed  it  advisable  to  open  the  controversy.  Now,  how- 
ever, he  hastened  to  send  this  alarming  essay  to  England, 
as  an  indication  of  what  was  to  be  expected.  He  says  to 
Richard  Jackson,  to  whom  the  Gazette  was  enclosed  :  — 

"  You  may  depend  upon  it,  that  the  leaders  of  the  people  are  in 
earnest,  and  flatter  themselves  they  shall  maintain  their  ground 
and  make  further  advances  until  they  have  rejected  every  act  of 
Parliament  which  controls  the  Colonies.  The  paper  which  I  en- 
close to  you  speaks  their  real  sentiments,  and  is  the  language  of  the 
Chief  Incendiary  of  the  House.  If  they  meet  with  nothing  to  deter 
them,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  next  session  may  obtain  a  vote 
for  a  message  or  declaration  in  the  very  terms  of  the  exception- 
able declaration  in  the  paper."  f 

The  first  of  these  essays  was  based  upon  Hutchinson's 
History  of  Massachusetts,  whose  positions  Mr.  Adams  at- 
tacks, supporting  his  assertions  with  quotations  from  the 
great  authors  on  government,  whose  works  were  in  his 
library. 

"  The  writer  of  the  History  of  Massachusetts  Bay  tells  us  that 
'  our  ancestors  apprehended  the  acts  of  trade  to  be  an  invasion  of 
the  rights,  liberties,  and  properties  of  the  subjects  of  his  Majesty  in 
the  Colony,  they  not  being  represented  in  Parliament ;  and,  accord- 
ing to  the  usual  sayings  of  the  learned  in  the  law,  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land were  bounded  within  the  four  seas,  and  did  not  reach  America. 
However,  they  made  provision  by  an  Act  of  the  Colony,  that  they, 

*  See  the  Governor's  Speech  to  the  House  of  Representatives,  Jan.  6,  1773 
(Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  336). 
t  Hutchinson  to  Jackson,  October,  1771. 


428  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

i.  e.  the  acts  of  trade,  should  be  strictly  attended  from  time  to 
time.'  The  passing  of  this  law  of  the  Colony,  and  thus  making  it 
an  act  of  their  own  Legislature,  he  says,  '  plainly  shows  the  wrong 
sense  they  had  of  the  relation  they  stood  in  to  England/  And  he 
further  adds,  that  '  though  their  posterity  have  as  high  notions  of 
English  liberties  as  they  had,  yet  they  are  sensible  that  they  are 
Colonists,  and  therefore  subject  to  the  control  of  the  parent  state/ 
As  I  am  not  disposed  to  yield  an  implicit  assent  to  any  authority 
whatever,  I  should  have  been  glad  if  this  historian,  since  he  thought 
proper  to  pronounce  upon  so  important  a  matter,  had  shown  us 
what  was  the  political  relation  our  ancestors  stood  in  to  England, 
and  how  far,  if  at  all,  their  posterity  are  subject  to  the  control  of 
the  parent  state.  If  he  had  vouchsafed  to  have  done  this  when  he 
published  his  History,  he  would  have  rendered  the  greatest  service 
both  to  Great  Britain  and  America,  and  eased  the  minds  of  multi- 
tudes who  have  been  unsatisfied  on  points  of  such  interesting  impor- 
tance. 

„/"Mr.  Locke,  in  his  treatise  on  government,  discovers  the  weak- 
ness of  this  position,  that  every  man  is  born  a  subject  to  his  prince, 
and  therefore  is  under  the  perpetual  tie  of  subjection  and  allegiance ; 
and  he  shows  that  express  consent  alone  makes  any  one_a_mejaber 
of  any  commonwealth.  He  holds  that  submission  to  the  laws  of 
any  country,  and  living  quietly  and  enjoying  privileges  and  protec- 
tion under  them,  does  not  make  a  man  a  member  of  that  society  or 
a  perpetual  subject  of  that  commonwealth,  any  more  than  it  would 
make  a  man  subject  to  another  in  whose  family  he  found  it  conven- 
ient to  abide  for  some  time,  though,  while  he  continued  under  it,  he 
were  obliged  to  comply  with  the  laws,  and  submit  to  the  govern- 
ment he  found  there.  Every  man  was  born  naturally  free ;  noth- 
ing can  make  a  man  a  subject  of  any  commonwealth  but  his  actually 
entering  into  it  by  positive  engagement  and  express  promise  and 
compact. 

"If  the  sentiments  of  this  great  man  are  well  grounded,  our  his- 
torian, before  he  asserted  so  peremptorily  that  the  ancestors  of  this 
country,  as  colonists,  were  subject  to  the  control  of  the  parent  state, 
should  have  first  made  it  appear  that  by  positive  engagement,  or 
express  promise  or  compact,  they  had  thus  bound  themselves. 

"  *  Every  man  being  born  free,'  says  another  distinguished  writer, 
1  the  son  of  a  citizen,  arrived  at  the  years  of  discretion,  may  examine 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  429 

whether  it  be  convenient  for  him  to  join  in  the  society  for  which  he 
was  destined  by  birth.  If  he  finds  that  it  will  be  no  advantage 
for  him  to  remain  in  it,  he  is  at  liberty  to  leave  it,  preserving,  as 
much  as  his  new  engagements  will  allow  him,  the  love  and  grati- 
tude he  owes  it.*  He  further  says,  '  there  are  cases  in  which  a 
citizen  has  an  absolute  right  to  renounce  his  country  and  abandon 
it  forever,'  which  is  widely  different  from  the  sentiment  of  the  his- 
torian, that '  allegiance  is  not  local,  but  perpetual  and  unalienable.' 
And  among  other  cases  in  which  a  citizen  has  this  absolute  right, 
he  mentions  that  when  the  sovereign  or  the  greater  part  of  the 
nation  will  permit  the  exercise  of  only  one  religion  in  the  state, 
which  was  the  case  when  our  ancestors  forsook  their  native  country. 
They  were  denied  the  rights  of  conscience.  They  left  it,  however, 
with  the  consent  of  the  nation ;  it  is  allowed  by  this  historian  that 
they  departed  the  kingdom  with  the  leave  of  their  prince.  They 
removed  at  their  own  expense,  and  not  the  nation's,  to  a  country 
claimed  and  possessed  by  independent  princes,  whose  right  to  the 
lordship  and  dominion  thereof  has  been  acknowledged  by  English 
kings ;  and  they  fairly  purchased  the  lands  of  the  rightful  owners, 
and  settled  them  at  their  own  and  not  the  nation's  expense.  It  is 
incumbent,  then,  upon  this  historian  to  show  by  what  rule  of  equity 
or  right,  unless  they  expressly  consented  to  it,  they  became  subject 
to  the  control  of  the  parent  state.  The  obligation  they  had  been 
under  to  submit  to  the  government  of  the  nation,  by  virtue  of  their 
enjoyment  of  lands  which  were  under  its  jurisdiction,  according  to 
Mr.  Locke,  began  and  ended  with  the  enjoyment.  That  was  but 
tacit  consent  to  the  government ;  and  when  by  donation,  sale,  or 
otherwise,  they  quitted  the  possession  of  those  lands,  they  were  at 
liberty,  unless  it  can  be  made  to  appear  they  were  otherwise  bound 
by  positive  engagement  or  express  contract,  to  incorporate  into  any 
other  commonwealth,  or  begin  a  new  one  in  vacuis  locis,  in  any  part 
of  the  world  they  could  find  free  and  unpossessed.  They  entered 
into  a  compact,  it  is  true,  with  the  King  of  England,  and,  upon  cer- 
tain conditions,  became  his  voluntary  subjects,  not  his  slaves.  But 
did  they  enter  into  any  express  promise  to  be  subject  to  the  control 
of  the  parent  state  ?  What  is  there  to  show  that  they  were  any  way 
bound  to  obey  the  acts  of  the  British  Parliament  but  those  very  acts 
themselves  ?    Is  there  anything  but  the  mere  ipse  dixit  of  an  histo- 

*  Mr.  Vattel,  Law  of  Nature  and  Nations. 


430  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [Oct. 

rian  who,  for  aught  any  one  can  tell,  designed  to  make  a  sacrifice  to 
the  ruling  powers  of  Great  Britain,  to  show  that  the  parent  state 
might  exercise  the  least  control  over  them  as  colonists,  any  more 
than  the  English  Parliament  could  exercise  control  over  the  domin 
ions  which  the  kings  formerly  held  in  France,  or  than  it  can  now 
over  the  inhabitants  of  the  moon,  if  there  be  any  ? 

"  By  the  charter  of  this  Province  the  legislative  power  is  in  the 
Governor,  who  is  appointed  by  the  King,  the  Council,  and  House 
of  Representatives.  The  legislative  of  any  commonwealth  must 
be  the  supreme  power.  But  if  any  edict  or  instruction  of  anybody 
else,  in  what  form  soever  conceived,  or  by  what  power  soever 
backed,  can  have  the  force  and  obligation  of  a  law  in  the  Province, 
which  has  not  its  sanction  from  that  legislative,  it  cannot*  be  the 
supreme  power.  Its  laws,  however  salutary,  are  liable  at  any  time 
to  be  abrogated  at  the  pleasure  of  a  superior  power.  Nobody  can 
have  a  power  to  make  laws  over  a  free  people  but  by  their  own 
consent,  and  by  authority  received  from  them.  It  follows,  then, 
either  that  the  people  of  this  Province  have  consented  and  given 
authority  to  the  parent  state  to  make  laws  over  them  or  that  she 

has  no  such  authority.      No  one,  I  believe,  will  pretend  thaJLlhfi 

parent  state  receives  any  authority  from  the  people  of  this  Prov- 
ince to  make  laws  for  them,  or  that  they  have  ever  consented  she 
should.  If  the  people  of  this  Province  are  a  part  of  the  body  pol- 
itic»of  Great  Britain,  they  have,  as  such,  aright  to  be  consulted  in 
the  making  of  all  acts  of  the  British  Parliament,  of  what  nature 
soever.  If  they  are  a  separate  body  politic,  and  are  free,  they  have 
a  right  equal  to  that  of  the  people  of  Great  Britain  to  make  laws 
for  themselves,  and  are  no  more  than  they  subject  to  the  control  of 
any  Legislature  but  their  own.  '  The  lawful  power  of  making  laws 
to  command  whole  politic  societies  of  men  belongs  so  properly  unto 
the  same  entire  societies,  that  for  any  prince  or  potentate  of  what 
kind  soever  upon  earth  to  exercise  the  same  of  himself,  and  not  by 
express  commission  immediately  and  personally  received  from  God, 
or  else  from  authority  derived  at  the  first  from  their  consent  upon 
whose  persons  they  impose  laws,  is  no  better  than  mere  tyranny. 
Laws,  therefore,  they  are  not,  which  public  approbation  hath  not 
made  so.'  *  This  was  the  reason  given  by  our  ancestors  why  they 
should  not  be  bound  by  the  acts  of  Parliament,  because,  not  being 

*  Hooker's  Eccl.  Pol. 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  431 

represented  in  Parliament,  the  public  approbation  of  the  Province 
had  not  made  them  laws.     And  this  is  the  reason  why  their  pos- 
terity do  not  hold  themselves  rightly  obliged  to  submit  to  the  reve- 
nue acts  now  in  being,  because  they  never  consented  to  them.     The 
former,  under  their  circumstances,  thought  it  prudent  to  adopt  the 
acts  of  trade  by  passing  a  law  of  their  own,  and  thus  formally  con- 
senting that  they  should  be  observed.     But  the  latter,  I  presume, 
will  never  think  it  expedient  to  copy  after  their  example.     The  his- 
torian tells  his  reader  that  '  They '  (the  people  of  this  Province) 
*  humbly  hope  for  all  that  tenderness  and  indulgence  from  a  British 
Parliament  which  the  Roman  Senate,  while  Rome  remained  free, 
showed  to  Roman  colonies.'     Why  the  conduct  of  Rome  towards 
her  colonies  should  be  recommended  as  an  example  to  our  parent 
state,  rather  than  that  of  Greece,  is  difficult  to  conjecture,  unless  it 
was  because,  as  has  been  observed,  the  latter  was  more  generous 
and  a  better  mother  to  her  colonies  than  the  former.     Be  that  as  it 
may,  the  Colonists  have  a  right  to  expect  from  the  parent  state  all 
possible  tenderness,  not  only  as  they  sprang  from  her,  and  are  sub- 
jects of  the  same  King,  but  as  they  have  greatly  contributed  to  her 
wealth  and  grandeur.     And  we  are  willing  to  render  to  her  respect 
and  certain  expressions  of  honor  and  reverence,  as  the  Grecian  col- 
onies did  to  the  city  from  whence  they  derived  their  origin,  as  Gro- 
tius  says,  so  long  as  the  colonies  were  well  treated.     By  our  compact 
with  our  King,  wherein  is  contained  the  rule  of  his  government  and 
the  measure  of  our  submission,  we  have  all  the  liberties  and  immu- 
nities  of  Englishmen  to  all   intents,  purposes,  and   constructions 
whatever ;  and  no  King  of  Great  Britain,  were  he  inclined,  could 
have  a  right,  either  with  or  without  his  Parliament,  to  deprive  us 
of  those  liberties.     They  are  originally  from  God  and  nature,  rec- 
ognized in  the  charter,  and  entailed  to  us  and  our  posterity.     It  is 
our  duty,  therefore,   to  contend  for  them  whenever  attempts  are 
made  to  violate  them. 

"  He  also  says, '  that  the  people  of  Ireland  were  under  the  same 
mistake '  with  our  ancestors ;  that  is,  in  thinking  themselves  exempt 
from  the  control  of  English  acts  of  Parliament.  But  nothing  drops 
from  his  pen  to  show  that  this  was  a  mistake,  excepting  that '  par- 
ticular persons  in  Ireland  did  penance  for  advancing  and  adhering 
to  those  principles.'  The  same  mighty  force  of  reasoning  is  used  to 
prove  that  this  Colony  was  mistaken,  viz. :   ■  They  suffered  the  loss 


432  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

of  the  charter/  Such  arguments  may  serve  to  evince  the  power  of 
the  parent  state,  but  neither  its  wisdom  nor  justice  appears  from 
them.  The  sense  of  the  nation,  however,  was  very  different  after 
the  Revolution.  The  House  of  Commons  voted  the  judgment 
against  the  charter  a  grievance ;  and  a  bill  was  brought  in,  and 
passed  that  House,  for  restoring  the  charters,  among  which  that  of 
this  Province  was  expressly  mentioned  ;  notwithstanding  the  mis- 
take above  mentioned  was  one  great  article  of  charge  against  it. 
But  the  Parliament  was  prorogued  sooner  than  was  expected,  by 
reason  of  the  King's  going  to  Ireland. 

"  Our  historian  tells  his  readers,  by  way  of  consolation,  that  *  it 
may  serve  as  some  excuse  for  our  ancestors,  that  they  were  not 
alone  in  their  mistaken  apprehensions  of  the  nature  of  their  subjec- 
tion ' ;  and  he  appears  to  be  mighty  glad  that '  so  sensible  a  gentle- 
man as  Mr.  Molineux,  the  friend  of  Mr.  Locke,  engaged  in  the 
cause.'  But  we  want  no  excuse  for  any  supposed  mistakes  of  our 
ancestors.  Let  us  first  see  it  proved  that  they  were  mistakes.  Till 
then,  we  must  hold  ourselves  obliged  to  them  for  sentiments  trans- 
mitted to  us  so  worthy  of  their  character  and  so  important  to  our 
security.  And  we  shall  esteem  the  arguments  of  so  sensible,  and  it 
might  justly  be  added  so  learned  a  gentleman  as  Mr.  Molineux, 
especially  as  they  had  the  approbation  of  his  friend  Mr.  Locke,  to 
be  valid,  while  we  see  nothing  to  oppose  them  but  the  unsupported 

opinion  of  Mr.  Hutchinson. 

"Valerius  Poplicola."* 

As  was  the  custom,  Hutchinson,  in  November,  issued  his 
annual  proclamation  for  a  day  of  thanksgiving,  and  the 
clergy  of  the  Province  were  directed  to  read  from  the  pul- 
pit, as  a  cause  for  gratitude,  "  that  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty were  continued."  The  artful  attempt,  however,  was  as 
transparent  as  the  assertion  was  false  and  hypocritical ;  and 
its  failure  is  thus  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Adams  in  a  letter  to 
Arthur  Lee :  — 

"  This,  I  imagine,  was  contrived  to  try  the  feelings  of  the  people; 
and  if  the  Governor  could  dupe  the  clergy,  as  he  had  the  Council, 
and  they  the  people,  so  that  the  proclamation  should  be  read  as 

*  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  28,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  433 

usual  in  our  churches,  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  but  acquaint 
Lord  Hillsborough  that  the  people  in  general  acquiesced  in  the 

measures  of  government  since  they  had  appeared  to  admit  with 

himself,  that  notwithstanding  the  faction  and  turbulence  of  a  party, 
their  liberties  were  continued  and  their  trade  enlarged.  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  say,  whether  this  measure  is  more  insolent  to  the  people  or 
affrontive  to  the  majesty  of  Heaven,  neither  of  whom,  however,  a 
modern  politician  regards,  if  at  all,  so  much  as  the  smiles  of  his 
noble  patron.  But  the  people  saw  through  it  in  general,  and  openly 
declared  that  they  would  not  hear  the  proclamation  read ;  the  con- 
sequence of  which  was,  that  it  was  read  in  only  two  of  all  the 
churches  in  this  town,  consisting  of  twelve,  besides  three  Episcopal 
churches ;  there,  indeed,  it  has  not  been  customary  ever  to  read 
them.  Of  those  two  clergymen  who  read  it,  one  of  them  being  a 
stranger  in  the  Province,  and  having  been  settled  but  about  six 
weeks,  performed  a  servile  task  about  a  week  before  the  usual  time, 
when  the  people  were  not  aware  of  it.  They  were,  however,  much 
disgusted  at  it.  The  other  is  a  known  flatterer  of  the  Governor, 
and  is  the  very  person  who  formed  the  fulsome  address  of  which  I 
wrote  you  some  time  ago.  He  was  deserted  by  a  great  number  of 
his  auditory  in  the  midst  of  his  reading."  * 

The  subject  of  this  proclamation,  by  which  the  people 
were  to  have  been  tricked  into  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
government  system,  was  extensively  commented  upon  by 
Mr.  Adams  in  the  press,  where  he  denounced  the  measure 
and  exposed  its  pernicious  tendencies. 

"  However  mysterious,"  he  says,  "  fawning  priests  and  flatterers 
may  affect  to  think  it,  kings  and  governors  may  be  guilty  of  treason 
and  rebellion,  and  they  have  in  general,  in  all  ages  and  countries, 
been  more  guilty  of  it  than  their  subjects.  Nay,  what  has  been 
commonly  called  rebellion  in  the  people  has  often  been  nothing  else 
but  a  manly  and  glorious  struggle  in  opposition  to  the  lawless  power 
of  rebellious  kings  and  princes,  who,  being  elevated  above  the  rest 
of  mankind,  and  paid  by  them  only  to  be  their  protectors,  have  been 
taught  by  enthusiasts  to  believe  they  were  authorized  by  God  to 
enslave  and  butcher  them.     It  is  not  uncommon  for  men,  by  their 

*  Adams  to  Lee,  Nov.  13,  1771. 


434  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

own  inattention  and  folly,  to  suffer  those  things  which  an  all-gra- 
cious Providence  designed  for  their  good  to  become  the  greatest 
evils.  If  we  look  into  the  present  state  of  the  world,  I  believe  this 
will  hold  good  with  regard  to  civil  government  in  general ;  and  the 
history  of  past  ages  will  inform  us,  that  even  those  civil  institutions 
which  have  been  best  calculated  for  the  safety  and  happiness  of  the 
people  have  sooner  or  later  degenerated  into  settled  tyranny,  which 
can  no  more  be  called  civil  government,  and  is,  in  fact,  upon  some 
accounts,  a  state  much  more  to  be  deprecated  than  anarchy  itself. 
It  may  be  said  of  each  that  it  is  a  state  of  war ;  and  it  is  beyond 
measure  astonishing  that  free  people  can  see  the  miseries  of  such  a 
state  approaching  to  them  with  large  and  hasty  strides,  and  suffer 
themselves  to  be  deluded  by  the  artful  insinuations  of  a  man  in  power 
and  his  indefatigable  sycophants  into  a  full  persuasion  that  their  lib- 
erties are  in  no  danger.  May  we  not  be  allowed  to  adopt  the  lan- 
guage of  Scripture,  and  apply  it  upon  so  important  a  consideration 
that,  seeing,  men  will  see  and  not  perceive,  and  hearing,  they  will 
hear  and  not  understand ! " 

He  thencites  the  biblical  instance  of  Jeroboam,  the  son 
of  JNebat^ whose  treason  in  making  his  people  sin  against  the 
Supreme  Being  he  compares  to  the  late  occurrences  in  the 
Province,  and  warns  the  people  against  the  insidious  procla- 
mation by  which  the  pulpit  was  to  have  been  made  a  covert 
means  of  strengthening  the  power  of  the  royal  Governor. 

"  Even  in  these  enlightened  times,"  he  continues,  "  the  people  in 
some  parts  of  the  world  are  so  bewitched  by  the  enchantments  of 
priestcraft  and  kingcraft  as  to  believe  that,  though  they  sin  against 
their  own  consciences  in  compliance  with  the  instruction  of  the  one 
or  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  the  other,  they  shall  never  suffer, 
but  shall  be  rewarded  in  the  world  to  come  for  being  so  implicitly 
subject  to  the  higher  powers ;  and  the  experience  of  the  world  tells 
us  that  there  are,  and  always  have  been,  various  ways  of  rewarding 
them  for  it  in  this  world.  On  the  contrary,  if  they  hesitate  to  de- 
clare a  blind  belief  in  the  most  palpable  absurdities  in  government 
and  religion,  they  are  sure  to  fall  into  the  immediate  hands  of  spir- 
itual inquisitors,  to  be  whipped  and  tortured  into  an  acknowledgment 
of  the  error  or  threatened  with  the  further  pains  of  eternal  damna- 
tion, if  they  persist  in  their  contumacy. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  435 

"  Thanks  be  to  God,  there  is  not  yet  so  formidable  a  junction  of 
the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  powers  in  this  country,  and  there  is 
reason  to  hope  there  are  but  few  of  the  clergy  who  would  desire  it. 
Yet  such  is  the  deplorable  condition  we  are  in,  and  so  notorious  is 
it  to  all,  that  should  any  man,  be  he  who  he  may,  tell  me  that  our 
civil  liberties  were  continued,  or  that  our  religious  principles  were 
not  in  danger,  I  should  detest  him,  if  in  his  senses,  as  a  perfidious 
man.  And  if  any  clergyman  should,  in  compliance  with  the  humors 
or  designs  of  a  man  in  power,  echo  such  a  false  declaration  in  the 
church  of  God,  he  would,  in  my  opinion,  do  well  seriously  to  con- 
sider whether  an  excessive  complaisance  may  not  have  betrayed 
him  into  the  sin  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  in  lying  against  the  Holy 
Ghost !  This  is  a  most  weighty  consideration,  but  the  times  require 
plain  dealing.  We  hope  and  believe,  nay  we  know,  that  there  are 
more  than  seven  thousand  who  will  never  bow  the  knee  to  Baal,  or 
servilely  submit  to  tyranny,  temporal  or  spiritual.  But  are  we  not 
fallen  into  an  age  when  some,  even  of  the  clergy,  think  it  no  shame 
to  flatter  the  idol,  and  thereby  lay  the  people  as  in  the  days  of  Jero- 
boam, the  son  of  Nebat,  under  a  temptation  to  commit  great  wicked- 
ness and  sin  against  God  ?  Let  us  beware  of  the  power  of  flattery. 
If  the  people  are  tainted  with  this  folly,  they  will  never  have  virtue 
enough  to  demand  a  restoration  of  their  liberties  in  the  very  face 
of  a  tyrant,  if  the  necessity  of  the  times  should  call  for  so  noble  an 
exertion.  And  how  soon  there  may  be  such  necessity,  God  only 
knows.  May  he  grant  them  fortitude,  as  well  as  sound  prudence, 
in  the  day  of  trial !  He  who  can  flatter  a  despot,  or  be  flattered  by 
him,  without  feeling  the  remonstrances  of  his  own  mind  against  it, 
may  be  remarkable  for  the  guise  and  appearance  of  sanctity ;  but  he 
has  very  little,  if  any,  true  religion.  If  he  habitually  allows  him- 
self in  it,  without  any  remorse,  he  is  a  hardened,  impenitent  sinner 
against  God  and  his  country.  Whatever  his  profession  may  be,  he 
is  not  fit  to  be  trusted,  and,  when  once  discovered,  he  will  never  be 
trusted  by  any  but  fools  and  children.  To  compliment  a  great  man, 
to  the  injury  of  truth  and  liberty,  may  be,  in  the  opinion  of  a  very 
degenerate  age,  the  part  of  a  polite  and  well-bred  gentleman.  Wise 
men,  however,  will  denominate  him  a  traitor  or  a  fool."  * 

Through  November,  December,  and  January,  Mr.  Adams 
*  "  Candidas/'  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Nov.  11,  1771. 


436  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec.  1771. 

wrote  incessantly  as  "  Candidus,"  arguing  with  the  crown 
advocates,  and  attacking  them  at  every  point.  These  hire- 
lings, who  received  their  cue  from  the  Governor,  availed 
themselves  of  the  long  season  of  quiet  to  disseminate  their 
principles  wherever  the  papers  in  government  interest  could 
reach. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

Hancock  still  opposes  the  Measures  of  Adams. — Political  Divisions  among  the 
Patriots.  —  The  King  desires  to  separate  Hancock  from  the  Popular  Party. 

—  Adams  alone  continues  his  "  Virulence."  —  His  Celebrity  as  a  Political 
Writer.  —  Testimony  of  John  Adams,  Bernard,  Sullivan,  and  Hutchinson. 

—  The  Patriot  Party  lessens  in  Numbers  and  Influence.  —  Hancock  leaves 
the  Patriot  Club,  and  seeks  New  Associates.  —  John  Adams  avoids  Politics 
and  Town  Meetings.  —  Adams  and  Joseph  Warren  stand  together.  — 
Warren  pronounces  the  Annual  Oration. 

The  enmity  of  John  Hancock  to  Samuel  Adams,  which 
originated  during  or  shortly  before  the  last  session,  still  con- 
tinued. Eliot,  a  contemporary,  and  personally  acquainted 
with  them,  was  thoroughly  versed  in  public  affairs,  and  as 
one  of  the  founders  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 
was  interested  in  everything  relating  to  the  events  of  the 
Revolution.  Speaking  of  this  disagreement,  he  states  that 
the  friends  who  remained  with  and  supported  Mr.  Adams 
were  the  "  sternest  republicans,  and  those,  perhaps,  who 
first  dared  to  view  our  independence  as  near."  *  Of  this, 
however,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  not  only  does  it  appear 
from  Hutchinson's  letters  already  quoted,  but  the  writings 
of  Adams  all  through  this  period,  though  for  the  good  of 
the  cause  they  make  no  allusion  to  persons,  disclose  the  con- 
dition of  the  Province  and  the  subsidence  of  the  spirit  of 
opposition  since  the  last  Legislature,  and  the  division  in  the 
party.  So  far,  in  fact,  had  affairs  gone,  that  influential  men 
in  England,  who  were  informed  by  the  Loyalists  in  Boston  of 
the  affair,  looked  forward  with  confidence  to  bringing  Han- 
cock over  to  their  side  ;  but  the  friends  of  liberty  never 
allowed  the  quarrel  to  proceed  to  that  length.  We  have 
already  seen,  in  the  Governor's  own  account,  that  he  ap- 

*  Eliot's  N.  E.  Biographical  Dictionary,  p.  10. 


438  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

proached  Hancock  with  such  views  ;  but  whether  during  the 
last  session,  when  the  latter  had  become  dissatisfied  with  the 
policy  of  Adams,  or  later  in  the  year,  is  not  stated.  In  one 
of  his  letters,  as  early  as  October,  he  says :  — 

"  The  letter  by  the  August  packet  did  not  come  to  hand  until  last 
evening.  I  value  your  correspondence  so  much  that  I  will  not  omit 
the  first  opportunity  of  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  your  letters,  as 
one  means  of  making  them  more  frequent.  Your  opinion  and  mine 
agree  exactly  upon  the  rules  by  which  I  am  to  govern  myself  as  to 
the  place  of  meeting  the  Assembly.  I  shall  know  how  their  extrav- 
agant behavior,  at  the  close  of  the  last  session,  was  resented  in  Eng- 
land, before  I  shall  meet  them  again  at  any  place.*    Your  intimation 

that measure  would  be  approved  by  the  highest  authority,  I 

take  very  kind,  and  shall  remember  that  it  is  in  confidence.  To 
answer  the  purpose  proposed,  I  must  have  from  home  some  assur- 
ance of  breaking  his  connections,  before  I  can  give  my  consent  to  his 
election.  He  is  quiet  at  present,  and  so  are  most  of  the  party.  All 
of  them,  except  Adams,  abate  of  their  virulence.  Adams  is  the 
writer  in  the  incendiary  newspaper,  and,  I  have  no  doubt,  wishes  to 
see  the  continent  strike  off  their  dependence  upon  Great  Britain, 
and  would  push  the  Colonies  into  a  rebellion  to-morrow,  if  it  was  jn 
his  power."  f 

How  exultingly  he  regarded  the  nattering  conditon  of  the 
Province  appears  by  the  following  extract  from  another  let- 
ter, written  shortly  afterwards.  For  a  few  months,  before 
and  after  this  time,  the  cause  of  American  liberty  had  but 
slight  encouragement.  The  truth  is,  that  at  this  period  of 
depression  Samuel  Adams  was  the  Atlas  of  freedom  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. Singly  he  met  the  champions  of  tyranny  ;  and 
while  others  held  back  and  counted  the  cost,  this  intrepid 
patriot  pressed  onward  and  never  wearied  in  the  great 
battle. 

"  At  present,"  says  Hutchinson,  in  the  letter  above  referred  to, 

*  Referring  to  Mr.  Adams's  protest  of  June  19  of  this  year.  See,  ante, 
pp.  403,  404. 

t  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  Oct.  17,  1771. 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  439 

R  Hancock  and  Adams  are  at  great  variance.  Some  of  my  friends 
blow  the  coals,  and  I  hope  to  see  a  good  effect.  They  follow  the 
opposition  in  England  in  everything  they  are  able  to  do.  I  com- 
pare this  to  the  quarrel  between  Oliver  and  "Wilkes.  Otis  was  car- 
ried off  to-day  in  a  post-chaise,  bound  hand  and  foot.  He  has  been 
as  good  as  his  word,  —  set  the  Province  in  a  flame,  and  perished  in 
the  attempt.  I  have  taken  much  pains  to  procure  writers  to  answer 
the  pieces  in  the  newspapers  which  do  so  much  mischief  among  the 
people,  and  have  two  or  three  engaged  with  Draper,  besides  a  new 
press,  and  a  young  printer  who  says  he  will  not  be  frightened,  and 
I  hope  for  some  good  effect."  * 

Certainly  the  zeal  of  the  Governor  could  not  be  ques- 
tioned. No  man  could  exceed  him  in  his  constant  watch- 
fulness, his  exertions  to  affect  the  public  mind,  his  crafty 
correspondence  with  the  powers  in  England,  or  in  the  use 
of  all  means,  however  minute  in  detail,  to  serve  the  ends  of 
government.  The  short  extract  from  his  letter  to  Bernard 
just  given  is  a  complete  index  to  his  mind.  As  he  increased 
his  efforts,  he  was  met  at  every  point  by  Adams,  who  was 
determined  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of  freedom,  until  the 
times  were  ripe  for  maturing  his  "  great  invention,"  the 
plans  for  which  he  was  already  arranging  in  his  mind.  One 
of  the  tribe  of  "  ministerial  writers,"  whom  Hutchinson  had 
thus  "  taken  pains  to  procure,"  signed  himself  '*  Chronus  "  ; 
and  to  him,  the  ablest  among  the  number,  Mr.  Adams  gave 
his  special  attention  as  most  worthy  his  pen.  From  his  con- 
troversy with  "  Chronus  "  a  few  selections  only  can  be  given. 

"  No  methods,"  he  says,  "  are  yet  left  untried  by  the  writers  on 
the  side  of  the  Ministry  to  persuade  this  people  that  the  best  way 
to  get  rid  of  our  grievances  is  to  submit  to  them.  This  was  the 
artifice  of  Governor  Bernard,  and  it  is  urged,  with  as  much  zeal  as 
ever,  under  the  administration  of  Governor  Hutchinson.  They 
would  fain  have  us  endure  the  loss  of  as  many  of  our  rights  and  lib- 
erties as  an  abandoned  Ministry  shall  see  fit  to  wrest  from  us,  with- 
out the  least  murmur.     But  when  they  find  that  they  cannot  silence 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Dec.  3,  1771. 


440  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

our  complaints  and  soothe  us  into  security,  they  then  tell  us  that 
*  much  may  be  done  for  the  public  interest  by  way  of  humble  and 
dutiful  representation,  pointing  out  the  hardship  of  certain  meas- 
ures.' This  is  the  language  of '  Chronus '  in  the  last  Massachusetts 
Gazette.  But  have  we  not  already  humbly  petitioned  the  King  for 
the  redress  of  our  grievances  and  the  restoration  of  our  liberties  ? 
Have  not  the  House  of  Representatives  done  it  in  the  most  dutiful 
terms  imaginable  ?  Was  it  not  many  months  before  that  petition 
was  suffered  to  reach  the  royal  hand  ?  And  after  it  was  laid  before 
his  Majesty,  was  he  not  advised  by  his  Ministers  to  measures  still 
more  grievous  and  severe  ?  Have  any  lenient  measures  been  the 
consequence  of  our  humble  representations  of  '  the  hardship  of  cer- 
tain measures,'  which  were  set  forth  by  the  House  of  Assembly  in 
the  most  decent  and  respectful  letters  to  persons  of  high  rank  in  the 
administration  of  government  at  home  ?  Did  not  the  deputies  of 
most  of  the  towns  and  districts  in  this  Province  meet  in  convention 
in  the  year  1768,  when  Bernard  had,  in  a  very  extraordinary  man- 
ner, dissolved  the  General  Assembly  ?  Did  they  not,  I  say,  in  the 
most  humble  terms  petition  the  Throne  for  the  redress  of  the  intol- 
erable grievances  we  then  labored  under?  Has  not  the  town  of 
Boston  most  submissively  represented  the  '  hardship  of  certain 
measures  '  to  their  most  gracious  sovereign,  and  petitioned  for  right 
and  relief?  Was  not  petitioning  and  humbly  supplicating  the 
method  constantly  proposed  by  those  very  persons  whom  '  Chronus/ 
after  the  manner  of  his  brethren,  styles  'pretended  patriots,'  and 
constantly  adopted,  till  it  was  apparent  that  our  petitions  and  repre- 
sentations were  treated  with  neglect  and  contempt  ?  —  till  we  found 
that  even  our  petitioning  was  looked  upon  as  factious,  and  the  effects 
of  it  were  the  heaping  of  grievance  upon  grievance  ?  Have  not  the 
people  of  this  Province,  after  all  their  humble  suppplications,  been 
falsely  charged  with  being  i  in  a  state  of  disobedience  to  all  law  and 
government '  ?  And,  in  consequence  of  petitioning,  has  not  the  cap- 
ital been  filled  with  soldiers  to  quiet  their  murmurs  with  the  bayonet, 
and  to  murder,  assassinate,  and  plunder  with  impunity  ?  Have  we 
not  borne  for  these  seven  years  past  such  indignity  as  no  free  people 
ever  suffered  before,  and  with  no  other  tokens  of  resentment  on  our 
part  than  pointing  out  our  hardships,  and  appealing  to  the  common 
sense  of  mankind,  after  we  had  in  vain  petitioned  our  most  gracious 
sovereign?    And  now  we  are  even  insulted  by  those  who  have 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  441 

brought  on  us  all  these  difficulties,  for  uttering  our  just  complaints  in 
a  public  newspaper !  Pointing  out  the  hardships  of  our  sufferings, 
and  calling  upon  the  impartial  world  to  judge  between  us  and  our 
oppressors,  and  protesting  before  God  and  man  against  innovations 
big  with  ruin  to  th6  public  liberty,  is  called  by  this  writer  '  a  stub- 
born opposition  to  public  authority/  and  '  a  high-hand  opposition 
and  repugnancy  to  government ! ' 

"  For  God's  sake,  what  are  we  to  expect  from  petitioning  ?  Have 
we  any  prospect  in  the  way  of  humble  and  dutiful  representation  ? 
Let  us  advert  to  the  nation  of  which  this  writer  says  we  are  a  part. 
Are  not  they  suffering  the  same  grievances  under  the  same  admin- 
istration ?  Have  not  they  repeatedly  petitioned  and  remonstrated 
to  the  Throne,  and  '  pointed  out  the  hardships  of  certain  measures ' 
to  the  King  himself?  And  has  not  his  Majesty  been  advised  by  his 
ministers  to  treat  them  as  imaginary  grievances  only?  And  yet, 
after  all,  against  repeated  facts  and  common  experience  to  the  con- 
trary, we  are  told  that 4  much  might  be  done  for  the  public  interest 
by  way  of  humble  and  dutiful  representation.'  If  there  were  even 
now  any  hopes  that  the  King  would  hear  us  while  his  present  coun- 
sellors are  near  him,  I  should  be,  by  all  means,  for  petitioning 
again ;  but  every  man  of  common  observation  will  judge  for  himself 
of  the  prospect."  * 

Samuel  Adams  stood  at  the  head  of  the  political  essayists 
of  New  England  as  regards  clearness  and  force  of  reasoning, 
vigor  of  style,  and  entire  devotion  to  the  public  liberties. 
Long  before  the  Revolution  he  had  taken  a  resolute  position 
against  the  first  signs  of  encroachment  on  the  Colonial  rights 
by  the  British  government,  at  a  time  when  the  teachings  of 
the  press,  confined  to  small  communities,  were  regarded  as 
oracular.  As  the  century  advanced,  and  the  Revolution 
drew  near,  he  was  quick  to  seize  upon  that  powerful  engine 
for  shaping  public  opinion  ;  and  when  the  intention  of  enforc- 
ing the  acts  of  Parliament  by  military  power  became  appa- 
rent, and  he  determined  to  labor  for  absolute  independence, 
he  saw  that  the  press  would  be  of  the  greatest  servioe  in  im- 
perceptibly educating  the  people  to  the  familiar  contempla- 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  2,  1771. 


442  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

tion  of  such  an  event.  The  fifth  and  sixth  volumes  of 
Bancroft's  History  form  a  monument  to  the  extraordinary 
skill,  industry,  and  ability  of  Adams  as  a  public  writer. 
Years  before  the  Stamp  Act,  the  historian  says  he  was 
"  famed  as  a  political  writer,  employing  wit  and  sarcasm  as 
well  as  energy  of  language  and  earnestness,"  and  "  no  one 
had  equal  influence  over  the  popular  mind."  *  With  how 
much  address  he  pursued  his  "  black  art,"  as  Hutchinson 
termed  it  in  his  letters  to  the  Ministry,  the  occasional 
extracts  given  in  the  present  work  will  exhibit.  The  Gov- 
ernor, in  his  secret  correspondence,  was  continually  forward- 
ing to  the  administration  evidence  against  the  "  Chief  Incen- 
diary," whose  "  art  and  skill,  by  exercising  his  talents  in  the 
newspapers,"  gave  his  Excellency  so  much  concern.  "  Ad- 
ams," said  he,  "  draws  most  of  the  seditious  papers  in  the 
newspapers."  Speaking  of  a  recent  state  document  he  says : 
"  The  answer,  drawn  by  Adams,  breathes  the  seditious  spirit 
which  has  appeared  in  Edes  and  Gill's  paper, "  the  Boston 
Gazette. f  It  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  ascertained 
who  were  "  the  two  or  three  writers  "  the  Governor  had 
hired  to  answer  these  essays,  as  stated  in  his  letter  of  De- 
cember 3,  already  quoted.  The  names  assumed  by  some 
of  the  principal  antagonists  of  Adams,  were  "  Benevolus," 
"  Probus,"  "  Philanthrop,"  and  "  Chronus,"  all  of  whom  were 
vigorous  and  ingenious  reasoners.  "  Philanthrop  "  was  the 
Attorney-General  of  Massachusetts,  Jonathan   Sewall,f   a 

*  Bancroft,  V.  196 ;  VI.  430. 

t  See  Hutchinson's  letters  to  Hillsborough,  Dartmouth,  etc. 

4  There  is  satisfactory  evidence  of  this.  John  Adams  says  in  his  Diary 
(Works,  II.  251),  "  You  will  see  a  'Philanthrop/  for  propagating  as  many  lies 
and  slanders  against  his  country  as  ever  fell  from  the  pen  of  a  sycophant, 
rewarded  with  the  places  of  Solicitor-General,  Attorney-General,  Advocate- 
t  General,  and  Judge  of  Admiralty,  with  six  thousands  a  year."  Andrew 
Eliot,  in  a  letter  to  Thomas  Hollis  (Jan.  26,  1771),  alludes  to  "Philanthrop" 
as  a  writer  for  government ;  and  Hollis,  who  had  good  means  of  information, 
mentions  in  a  note  to  this  letter  that  the  supposed  writer  was  Jonathan 
Sewall.  Writing  to  John  Adams  from  Boston  (July  21,  1786),  Samuel  Adams 
"  Jonathan  Philanthrop,  whom  you  well  knew,  with  many  others,  took 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  443 

man  of  great  legal  attainments,  and  one  of  the  best  contro- 
versialists in  the  Province.  Writhing  under  the  plain  logic 
and  outspoken  truths  boldly  proclaimed  in  the  Gazette, 
Hutchinson  recorded  that  at  the  commencement  of  the  Rev- 
olution Adams  had  been  "  for  near  twenty  years  a  writer 
against  government  in  the  public  newspapers,  at  first  but  an 
indifferent  one  ;  long  practice  caused  him  to  arrive  at  great 
perfection,  and  to  acquire  a  talent  of  artfully  and  fallaciously 
insinuating  into  the  minds  of  his  readers  a  prejudice  against 
the  character  of  all  whom  he  attacked,  beyond  any  other 
man  I  ever  knew."  *  Hutchinson's  predecessor  liked  him 
no  better.  "Bernard,"  said  one  who  knew  them  both, 
"  used  to  damn  that  Adams.  Every  dip  of  his  pen  stung 
like  a  horned  snake."  f  Adams  sinned  in  dissecting  and 
laying  bare  to  the  world  the  designs  of  Parliament,  and  in 
mercilessly  exposing  the  practices  of  the  Loyalists  from 
Hutchinson  down  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  Customs. 
Nothing  escaped  his  penetration,  and  the  Tories  hated  him 
for  that  reason  above  all  other  men.  "  None  of  these  gov- 
ernment men,"  says  Sabine,  "  were  so  effective  as  popular 
writers  as  Samuel  Adams,  and  his  single  pen  was  probably 
a  match  for  them  all."  This  was  after  an  examination  of 
the  papers  of  the  refugee  families  in  Nova  Scotia,  where  yet 
remains  much  valuable  material  for  historical  purposes. 
Governor  Bernard,  in  1769,  sent  a  series  of  Evening  Posts 
to  the  Earl  of  Hillsborough  J  "  for  the  sake,"  he  writes,  "  of 

a  very  active  part,  and  they  were  very  successful  in  promoting  the  designs  of 
the  British  government  before  the  war."  This  association  of  the  names  leaves 
no  doubt  that  Samuel  Adams  knew  that  Sewall  and  "  Philanthrop  "  were  one. 
John  Adams  always  supposed  that  Sewall  was  his  antagonist  as  "  Massachu- 
settensis  "  in  1775  ;  and  by  the  above  quotation  it  would  appear  that  his  kins- 
man was  of  the  same  opinion.  It  is  now  known  that  Judge  Leonard  was  the 
writer. 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  295. 

t  John  Adams's  Works,  H.  425.  These  contemporary  authorities  thus 
establish  Samuel  Adams  as  a  writer  on  popular  liberties  as  early  as  1744-45, 
during  the  reign  of  George  the  Second. 

t  Bernard  to  Hillsborough,  Feb.  25,  1769. 


444  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

a  periodical  paper  published  in  it,  and  continued.  It  was 
first  published  at  New  York,  where  it  is  continued.  It  has 
been  also,  I  understand,  regularly  sent  to  London,  and  pub- 
lished there.     It  is  composed  by  Adams  and  his  assistants." 

"  His  pen,"  says  James  Sullivan,  who  was  for  many  years  famil- 
iar with  the  writings  of  Samuel  Adams,  "  was  no  less  powerful  than 
his  tongue.  A  mind  well  stocked  with  the  sentiments  of  a  Locke,  a 
Sydney,  and  other  great  men  who  had  contended  against  monarch- 
ial  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  with  an  education  which  had  given  it 
the  entire  possession  of  all  the  principal  systems  and  abuses  of  the 
ancient  Grecian  and  Roman  republics,  as  well  as  of  the  despotisms 
of  the  world,  was  capable  of  carrying  conviction  to  the  hearts  of  all 
who  had  not  been  bribed  against  their  own  freedom,  or  who  had  not 
suffered  themselves  to  be  betrayed  by  the  allurement  of  avarice 

and  ambition,  or  by  the  impression  of  fear His  exertions  all 

tended  to  a  separation.  By  his  speeches  and  Gazette  productions  a 
large  majority  was  produced  and  maintained  in  Massachusetts  in 
opposition  to  the  claims  of  the  Ministry." 

John  Adams  was  always  vividly  impressed  with  the  ex- 
traordinary effect  of  the  literary  productions  of  his  kinsman, 
which  he  remembered  for  their  power  in  producing  and  sus- 
taining the  Revolution.  Whenever  he  had  occasion  in  after 
years  to  refer  to  Samuel  Adams,  these  voluminous  but  then 
generally  forgotten  writings  seem  to  have  come  up  in  his 
recollection  as  inseparably  associated  with  the  man.  "  With- 
out the  character  of  Samuel  Adams,"  he  says,  "  the  true 
history  of  the  American  Revolution  can  never  be  written. 
For  fifty  years  his  pen,  his  tongue,  his  activity,  were  con 
stantly  exerted  for  his  country  without  fee  or  reward.  Dur- 
ing that  time  he  was  almost  an  incessant  writer.  But  where 
are  his  writings  ?   Who  can  collect  them  ?  *  and  if  collected, 

*  The  letters  of  the  royal  Governors  to  the  Ministry,  and  the  statements  of 
informers,  together  with  what  has  been  fonnd  of  his  original  drafts  of  political 
essays,  have  afforded  a  clew  to  the  recovery  of  a  portion  of  his  works.  The 
bulk,  as  John  Adams  truly  said,  can  never  be  recognized.  How  many  signa- 
tures he  adopted  during  the  long  period  between  the  commencement  of  the 
revenue  system  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  445 

who  will  ever  read  them  ?  "  Referring  to  Samuel  Adams's 
Boston  instructions  of  1764,  he  says :  "  Those  instructions 
are  a  sample  of  the  simplicity,  purity,  and  harmony  of  style 
which  distinguished  all  the  productions  of  Mr.  Adams's 
pen."  And  again:  "A  collection  of  his  writings  would  be  as 
curious  as  voluminous.  It  would  throw  light  upon  Ameri- 
can history  for  fifty  years.  In  it  would  be  found  specimens 
of  a  nervous  simplicity  of  reasoning  and  eloquence  that 
have  never  been  rivalled  in  America."  *  And  in  a  letter  to 
Samuel  Adams,  written  in  Paris,  in  1783  :  "  I  want  to  come 
home  for  many  reasons,  one  of  which  lies  with  very  great 

Twenty-five  have  been  collected,  of  his  use  of  which  there  is  absolute  proof. 
Others,  appended  to  articles  plainly  in  his  style,  are  rejected  for  want  of  positive 
evidence  of  his  authorship.  Some  of  his  essays  over  one  signature  extend, 
in  consecutive  series,  through  several  years,  —  the  argument  being  maintained 
right  and  left  with  his  various  Loyalist  assailants,  —  while,  with  different 
names,  he  kept  up  contests  simultaneously  with  others  of  the  crown  writers  on 
distinct  subjects.  All  this  time  his  pen  was  employed  on  the  state  papers  of 
the  Legislature  and  other  public  bodies,  and  in  his  extensive  correspondence 
with  patriots  in  the  other  Colonies  and  with  gentlemen  in  England.  His 
writings  over  the  following  signatures  have  been  collected  :  — 

Determinatus,  Vindex, 

Principiis  Obsta,  A  Chatterer, 

T.  Z.,  An  Elector  in  1771, 

A  Layman,  An  American, 

A.  B.,  A., 

Cedant  Arma  Togae,  Valerius  Poplicola, 

E.  A.,  A  Son  of  Liberty, 

A  Bostonian,  Shippen, 

A  Tory,  Z., 

Populus,  Observation, 

An  Impartialist,  Sincerus, 

Alfred,  A  Religious  .Politician. 

Candidus, 

Extracts  from  most  of  these  series  appear  in  this  work.  Many  are  of  great 
length.  If  published  entire,  together  with  the  arguments  of  his  antagonists, 
they  would  present  a  formidable  array  of  controversial  papers,  embracing  all 
the  issues  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies,  and  showing  the  gradual 
progress  of  events  which  culminated  in  American  Independence. 

*  John  Adams's  Works,  I.  673,  674. 


446  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

weight  upon  my  mind  ;  it  is  to  persuade  you  to  make  a  col- 
lection of  your  writings,  in  which  I  think  the  new  world 
deeply  interested  and  the  old  one  too."  As  early  as  1765, 
in  his  Diary,  he  describes  Otis,  Cushing,  and  Adams  at  the 
Club,  where  his  kinsman  had  introduced  him,  and  records 
that  Adams  had  "  the  most  correct,  genteel,  and  artful  pen  " 
of  all  the  distinguished  characters  in  that  body ;  and,  in 
1774,  he  again  points  out  Adams  as  "the  most  elegant 
writer"  of  any  who  had  figured  in  his  time.  There  are 
other  instances  where  he  refers  to  the  literary  celebrity  of 
Samuel  Adams,  evidently  reflecting  the  general  opinion  of  all 
parties  prior  to  and  during  the  Revolution.  In  fact,  though 
Otis,  Thacher,  and  Mayhew,  at  the  time  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
and  Joseph  Warren,  John  Adams,  Quincy,  Cooper,  Young, 
Chauncy,  and  others,  at  a  subsequent  period,  all  wrote 
against  the  British  government,  we  need  go  no  further  than 
to  these  unqualified  and  concurrent  assertions  of  John 
Adams  and  Hutchinson  in  estimating  Samuel  Adams  as 
the  one  particular  essayist  who  excelled  them  all,  not  only 
as  the  earliest,  but  as^  the  most  powerful  and  voluminous 
writer  on  American  politics. 

But,  though  the  productions  of  Adams  in  defence  of  Colo- 
nial rights  had  long  been  known,  his  Revolutionary  essays 
proper  commenced  in  the  winter  of  1768,  a  year  before  the 
first  of  the  celebrated  "  Junius  "  letters  appeared  in  London. 
"  Junius "  wrote  for  three  years,  terminating  his  famous 
onslaughts  upon  the  Ministry  in  January,  1772.  During  the 
whole  of  that  period  Adams  was  bending  to  his  task  in  New 
England,  scattering  abroad  the  seeds  of  democracy  to  achieve 
far  different  results.  To  some  extent  there  is  found  in  the 
two  writers  the  same  clearness,  precision,  force  of  style,  and 
impressiveness  of  manner ;  but  while  the  object  of  "  Junius  " 
was  not  so  much  to  conduct  a  train  of  logical  argument  as 
to  inflame  the  passions  by  vigorous  attacks,  couched  in 
nervous  and  felicitous  language,  the  essays  of  Adams  are 
remarkable  for  their  uncontrovertible  reasoning.     His  de- 


1771.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  447 

ductions  were  never  assailed  with  success,  and  those  who. 
encountered  him  always  retired  discomfited.     His  strength 
was  not  in  imagery  and  word-painting,  but  rather  in  his  vig- 
orous grasp  of  thought  and  subtle  analysis,  and  his  direct 
manner  of  cutting  into  the  heart  of  subjects.     Despite  the 
armor  of  pretended  contempt  with  which  the  Loyalists  at 
times  shielded  themselves,  he  generally  probed  to  the  quick, 
and  stung  the  more  keenly  from  the  very  absence  of  orna- 
ment.    A  severe  simplicity  of  language,   which   disdained 
the  studied  contrivances  of  speech,  left  nothing  to  be  inferred 
and  compelled  a  reply.    The  patriotic  writings  of  Dickinson, 
in  Pennsylvania,  were  no  less  potent  to  indoctrinate  the 
people  with  the  spirit  of  liberty ;  and  Samuel  Adams,  his 
most  ardent  admirer,  repeatedly  acknowledged  the  effect  of 
the  Farmer's  Letters.     Dickinson  wrote  to  preserve  har- 
mony with  the  mother  country,  as  well  as  to  assert  the 
natural  rights  of  Americans.     Adams  aimed  to  create  the 
sentiment  of  patriotism,  which  he  foresaw  would  be  wanted 
ere  long  in  the  violent  disruption  of  the  Colonies  from  Great 
Britain.     Admirable  judgment  as  well  as  skill  is  evinced 
in  these  essays.     The  same  wise  caution  which  pervaded  all 
political  proceedings  under  his  direction  is  apparent  in  his 
writings,  so  that  the  most  critical  examination  finds  no  in- 
stance of  unguarded  zeal  or  rashness,  which  might  give  the 
Loyalists  an  advantage  in  their  controversies  with  him.     His 
maxim  was,  "  Keep  your  enemy  in  the  wrong." 

Continuing  his  argument  with  "  Chronus,"  Mr.  Adams 
seems  to  have  occupied  the  columns  of  the  Gazette  almost 
exclusively.  From  these  copious  writings  it  is  impossible 
to  insert  more  than  occasional  extracts,  nor  can  space  be 
allotted  to  the  equally  lengthy  arguments  of  his  opponents. 
Some  of  his  essays,  however,  cannot  be  dissected  without 
destroying  the  context,  and  from  among  these  a  few  of  the 
shorter  ones,  with  the  advice  of  a  distinguished  scholar,  are 
given  entire,  even  at  the  risk  of  filling  the  pages  with  quo 
tations  to  the  sacrifice  of  narrative.     The  following  was 


448  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Dec. 

written  almost  in  mid-winter,  when  the  political  aspect  was 
as  gloomy  as  the  bleak  New  England  landscape  at  that 
season;  when  public  spirit  seemed  to  have  succumbed  to 
the  unremitting  exertions  of  the  Governor  and  his  em- 
ployees to  conceal  the  policy  of  government  under  a  deceit- 
ful guise  of  gentleness ;  while  a  large  fleet  was  wintering  in 
the  harbor,  and  every  precaution  had  been  taken  to  intimi- 
date the  people  by  an  exhibition  of  power.  It  was  several 
months  before  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature.  The  Gover- 
nor carried  everything  he  pleased  in  his  Divan,  but  his 
proclamation  had  exposed  him.  "  Should  he  once,"  said 
Mr.  Adams,  "lose  the  reputation  which  his  friends  have 
with  the  utmost  industry  been  building  up  for  him  among 
the  clergy  for  these  thirty  years  past,  as  a  consummate  saint, 
he  must  fall  like  Samson  when  his  locks  Were  shorn."  *  The 
Commissioners  of  the  Customs,  who  now  more  than  ever 
had  a  wide  influence  in  the  affairs  of  government,  held  their 
consultations  at "  Butcher's  Hall,"  as  their  head-quarters  in 
State  Street  were  called,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion, 
with  all  the  insolence  of  supreme  rulers,  that  the  House  of 
Representatives  "  should  rescind  "  its  famous  protest  of  the 
June  session,  in  which  Mr.  Adams  had,  for  the  while,  rudely 
destroyed  the  fond  hopes  of  the  Loyalists.  Outside  of  Bos- 
ton an  appearance  of  contentment  met  the  wishes  of  the 
Governor,  and  he  still  transmitted  to  England  pleasing  ac- 
counts. If  ever  the  pen  of  the  patriot  was  needed  it  was 
now,  and  no  man  more  clearly  than  Samuel  Adams  saw 
through  the  fatal  veil  of  fancied  security. 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Arthur  Lee,  Nov.  13,  1771.  The  arrogant  and  domi- 
neering spirit  displayed  by  the  British  Ministry,  as  well  as  by  their  agents  in 
Massachusetts,  in  an  assumed  absolutism  over  the  Provincial  authorities  is 
pointedly  alluded  to  in  a  letter  written  Jan.  14,  1772.  "Is  it  not,"  he  says, 
"  a  strange  mode  of  expression,  of  late  years  made  use  of,  that  Administration 
intends  that  this  law  shall  be  enacted  or  that  repealed !  It  is  language  adapted 
to  the  infamy  of  the  present  times  by  a  nation  which  boasts  of  the  freedom 
and  independency  of  her  Parliaments.  I  believe  almost  any  of  the  American 
Assemblies  would  highly  resent  such  an  imperious  tone." 


1771.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  449 

"  •  Whene'er  from  putrid  courts  foul  vapors  rose, 
With  vigorous  wholesome  gales 
The  winds  of  opposition  fiercely  blew, 
Which  purged  and  cleared  the  agitated  state/ 

"  If  the  liberties  of  America  are  ever  completely  ruined,  of  which, 
in  my  opinion,  there  is  now  the  utmost  danger,  it  will  in  all  proba- 
bility be  the  consequence  of  a  mistaken  notion  of  prudence  which 
leads  men  to  acquiesce  in  measures  of  the  most  destructive  ten- 
dency for  the  sake  of  present  ease.  When  designs  are  formed  to 
raze  the  very  foundation  of  a  free  government,  those  few  who  are 
to  erect  their  grandeur  and  fortunes  upon  the  general  ruin  will  em- 
ploy every  art  to  soothe  the  devoted  people  into  a  state  of  indo- 
lence, inattention,  and  security,  which  is  forever  the  forerunner  of 
slavery.  They  are  alarmed  at  nothing  so  much  as  attempts  to 
awaken  the  people  to  jealousy  and  watchfulness ;  and  it  has  been 
an  old  game,  played  over  and  over  again,  to  hold  up  the  men  who 
would  rouse  their  fellow-citizens  and  countrymen  to  a  sense  of  their 
real  danger,  and  spirit  them  to  the  most  zealous  activity  in  the  use 
of  all  proper  means  for  the  preservation  of  the  public  liberty,  as 
*  pretended  patriots/  '  intemperate  politicians,'  'rash  hot-headed  men,' 
1  incendiaries,' '  wretched  desperadoes,'  who,  as  was  once  said  of  the 
best  of  men,  would  turn  the  world  upside  down,  or  have  done  it 
already.  But  he  must  have  a  small  share  of  fortitude  indeed,  who  is 
put  out  of  countenance  by  hard  speeches  without  sense  and  meaning, 
or  affrighted  from  the  path  of  duty  by  the  rude  language  of  Billings- 
gate. For  my  own  part,  I  smile  contemptuously  at  such  unmanly 
efforts.  I  would  be  glad  to  hear  the  reasoning  of  '  Chronus '  if  he 
has  a  capacity  for  it ;  but  I  disregard  his  railing,  as  I  would  the 
barking  of  a  '  cur  dog/ 

"The  dispassionate  and  rational  Pennsylvania  Farmer*  has  told 
us  that  a  perpetual  jealousy  respecting  liberty  is  absolutely  requi- 
site in  all  free  states.  The  unhappy  experience  of  the  world  has 
frequently  manifested  the  truth  of  his  observation.  For  want  of 
this  jealousy  the  liberties  of  Spain  were  destroyed  by  what  is  called 
a  vote  of  credit ;  that  is,  a  confidence  placed  in  the  King  to  raise 
money  upon  extraordinary  emergencies  in  the  intervals  of  Parlia- 
ment. France  afterwards  fell  into  the  same  snare ;  and  England 
itself  was  in  great  danger  of  it  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second, 

*  John  Dickinson,  author  of  the  Farmer's  Letters. 
VOL.  I.  29 


450  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  pec. 

when  a  bill  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons  to  enable  the 
King  to  raise  what  money  he  pleased  upon  extraordinary  occasions, 
as  the  Dutch  war  was  pretended  to  be :  and  the  scheme  would 
doubtless  have  succeeded  to  the  ruin  of  the  national  liberty,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  watchfulness  of  the  *  intemperate  patriots,'  and 
*  wrong-headed  politicians,'  even  of  that  day. 

"How  much  better  is  the  state  of  the  American  Colonies  soon 
likely  to  be  than  that  of  France  and  Spain ;  or  than  Britain  would 
have  been  in,  if  the  bill  before  mentioned  had  passed  into  an  act  ? 
Does  it  make  any  real  difference  whether  one  man  has  the  sovereign 
disposal  of  the  people's  purses  or  five  hundred  ?  Is  it  not  as  certain 
that  the  British  Parliament  have  assumed  to  themselves  the  power 
of  raising  what  money  they  please  in  the  Colonies  upon  all  occa- 
sions, as  it  is  that  the  Kings  of  France  and  Spain  exercise  the  same 
power  over  their  subjects  upon  emergencies  ?  Those  Kings,  by  the 
way,  being  the  sole  judges  when  emergencies  happen,  they  gene- 
rally create  them  as  often  as  they  want  money.  And  what  security 
have  the  Colonies  that  the  British  Parliament  will  not  do  the  same  ? 
It  is  dangerous  to  be  silent,  as  the  ministerial  writers  would  have  us 
to  be,  while  such  a  claim  is  held  up ;  but  much  more  to  submit  to 
it.  Your  very  silence,  my  countrymen,  may  be  construed  a  submis- 
sion, and  those  who  would  persuade  you  to  be  quiet  intend  to  give 
it  that  turn.  Will  it  be  likely,  then,  that  your  enemies  who  have 
exerted  every  nerve  to  establish  a  revenue  raised  by  virtue  of  a 
supposed  inherent  right  in  the  British  Parliament,  without  your  con- 
sent, will  recede  from  the  favorite  plan  when  they  imagine  it  to  be 
completed  by  your  submission  ?  Or,  if  they  should  repeal  the  ob- 
noxious act  upon  the  terms  of  your  submitting  to  the  right,  is  it  not 
to  be  apprehended  that  your  own  submission  will  be  brought  forth 
as  a  precedent  in  a  future  time,  when  your  watchful  adversary  shall 
have  succeeded  and  laid  the  most  of  you  fast  asleep  in  the  bed  of 
security  and  insensibility.  Believe  me,  should  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, which  claims  a  right  to  tax  you  at  discretion,  ever  be  guided 
by  a  wicked  and  corrupt  administration,  —  and  how  near  they  are 
approaching  to  it,  I  will  leave  you  to  judge,  —  you  will  then  find 
one  revenue  act  succeeding  another,  till  the  fatal  influence  shall  ex- 
tend to  your  own  Parliaments.  Bribes  and  pensions  will  be  as  fre- 
quent here  as  they  are  in  the  unhappy  kingdom  of  Ireland,  and  you 
and  your  posterity  will  be  made,  by  means  of  your  own  money,  as 


1771.]  '  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  451 

subservient  to  the  will  of  a  British  Ministry  or  an  obsequious  gov- 
ernor as  the  vassals  of  France  are  to  that  of  their  Grand  Monarch. 
What  will  prevent  this  misery  and  infamy  but  your  being  finally 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  the  ultima  ratio  ?  But  is  it  probable 
that  you  will  ever  make  any  manly  efforts  to  recover  your  liberty 
after  you  have  been  inured  without  any  remorse  to  contemplate 
yourselves  as  slaves  ?  '  Custom/  says  the  Farmer, '  gradually  recon- 
ciles us  to  objects  even  of  dread  and  detestation.  It  reigns  in  noth- 
ing more  arbitrarily  than  in  public  affairs.  When  an  act  injurious 
to  freedom  has  once  been  done,  and  the  people  bear  it,  the  repeti- 
tion of  it  is  more  likely  to  meet  with  submission.  For  as  the  mis- 
chief of  the  one  was  found  to  be  tolerable,  they  will  hope  that  the 
second  will  prove  so  too ;  and  they  will  not  regard  the  infamy  of 
the  last,  because  they  are  stained  with  that  of  the  first.' 

"  The  beloved  patriot  further  observes,  in  mixed  governments  the 
very  texture  of  their  constitution  demands  a  'perpetual  jealousy. 
For  the  cautions  with  which  power  is  distributed  among  the  several 
orders  imply  that  each  has  that  share  which  is  proper  for  the  gen- 
eral welfare,  and,  therefore,  that  any  further  imposition  must  be 
pernicious/  The  government  of  this  Province,  like  that  of  Great 
Britain,  of  which  it  is  said  to  be  an  epitome,  is  a  mixed  govern- 
ment. Its  Constitution  is  delicately  framed ;  and,  I  believe,  all  must 
acknowledge  that  the  power  vested  in  the  Crown  is  full  as  great  as 
is  consistent  with  the  general  welfare.  The  King,  by  the  charter, 
has  the  nomination  and  appointment  of  the  Governor ;  but  no  men- 
tion being  therein  made  of  his  right  to  take  the  payment  of  his 
Governor  upon  himself,  it  is  fairly  concluded  that  the  people  have 
reserved  that  right  to  themselves,  and  the  Governor  must  stipulate 
with  them  for  his  support.  That  this  was  the  sense  of  the  contract- 
ing parties  appears  from  practice  contemporary  with  the  date  of  the 
charter  itself,  which  is  the  best  exposition  of  it,  and  the  same  prac- 
tice has  been  continued  uninterruptedly  to  the  present  time.  But 
the  King  now  orders  his  support  out  of  the  American  revenue. 
'  Chronus '  himself  acknowledges  that  he  is  thereby  ?  rendered  more 
independent  of  the  people.'  Consequently,  the  balance  of  power,  if 
it  was  before  even,  is  by  this  means  disadjusted.  Here,  then,  is  an- 
other great  occasion  of  jealousy  in  the  people.  No  reasonable  man 
will  deny  that  an  undue  proportion  of  power  added  to  the  monarch- 
ical part  of  the  Constitution,  is  as  dangerous  as  the  same  undue  pro- 


452  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [1771. 

portion  would  be,  if  added  to  the  democratical.  Should  the  people 
refuse  to  allow  the  Governor  the  due  exercise  of  the  powers  that 
are  vested  in  him  by  the  charter,  I  dare  say  they  would  soon  be 
told,  and  very  justly,  of '  the  mischief  that  would  be  the  consequence 
of  it.'  And  is  there  not  the  same  reason  why  the  people  may,  and 
ought  to,  speak  freely  and  loudly  of  the  mischief  which  would  be 
the  consequence  of  his  being  rendered  more  independent  of  them,  or 
which  is  in  reality  the  same  thing,  his  becoming  possessed  of  more 
power  than  the  charter  vests  him  with  ?  For  the  annihilating  a 
constitutional  check  in  the  people,  which  is  necessary  to  prevent  the 
Governor's  exercise  of  exorbitant  power,  is  in  effect  to  enable  him 
to  exercise  that  exorbitant  power,  when  he  pleases,  without  control. 
A  Governor,  legally  appointed,  may  usurp  powers  which  do  not 
belong  to  him,  and  it  is  ten  to  one  but  he  will  if  the  people  are  not 
jealous  and  vigilant.  Charles  the  First  was  legally  appointed  King; 
the  doctrines  advanced  by  the  clergy  in  his  father's  infamous  reign 
led  them  both  to  believe  that  they  were  the  Lord's  anointed,  and 
were  not  accountable  for  their  conduct  to  the  people.  It  is  strange 
that  Kings  seated  on  the  English  throne  should  imbibe  such  opin- 
ions ;  but  it  is  possible  they  were  totally  unacquainted  with  the  his- 
tory of  their  English  predecessors.  Charles,  by  hearkening  to  the 
counsel  of  his  evil  ministers,  which  coincided  with  the  principles  of 
his  education  and  his  natural  temper,  and  confiding  in  his  corrupt 
judges,  became  an  usurper  of  powers  which  he  had  no  right  to ; 
and,  exercising  those  powers,  he  became  a  tyrant;  but  the  end 
proved  fatal  to  him,  and  afforded  a  solemn  lesson  for  all  succeeding 
usurpers  and  tyants.  His  subjects,  who  made  him  King,  called 
him  to  account,  dismissed,  and  punished  him  in  a  most  exemplary 
manner!  Charles  was  obstinate  in  his  temper,  and  thought  of 
nothing  so  little  as  concessions  of  any  kind.  If  he  had  been  well 
advised  he  would  have  renounced  his  usurped  powers.  Every  wise 
governor  will  relinquish  a  power  which  is  not  clearly  constitutional, 
however  inconsiderable  those  about  him  may  persuade  him  to  think 
it ;  especially  if  the  people  regard  it  as  a  part  of  a  system  of  oppres- 
sion and  an  evidence  of  tyrannical  designs.  And  the  more  tenacious 
he  is  of  it,  the  stronger  is  the  reason  why  i  the  spirit  of  apprehen- 
sion '  should  be  kept  up  among  them  in  its  utmost  vigilance. 

"  Candidus."  * 
*  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  9,  1771. 


1772;]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  m  453 

Another  essay,  in  which  Mr.  Adams  denied  the  right  of 
Parliament  to  legislate  for  the  Colonies,  was  published  in 
January,  1772. 

"  I  have  observed,"  he  says,  "  from  Baron  Montesquieu,  that  the 
British  Constitution  has  liberty  for  its  direct  object ;  and  that  the 
Constitution  of  this  Province,  according  to  Mr.  Hutchinson,  is  an 
epitome  of  the  British  Constitution ;  that  the  right  of  representa- 
tion in  the  body  that  legislates  is  essential  to  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, without  which  there  cannot  be  liberty ;  and  '  Chronus '  himself 
acknowledges  that  the  Americans  are  '  incapable  of  exercising  this 
right.'  Let  him  now  draw  what  conclusion  he  pleases.  All  I  in- 
sist upon  is,  that  the  conclusion  cannot  be  just,  that  the  Parliament's 
laying  duties  upon  trade,  with  the  express  purpose  of  raising  a  rev- 
enue, is  not  repugnant  to,  or  subversive  of,  our  Constitution.  This 
doctrine,  though  long  exploded  by  the  best  writers  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  he  now  urges ;  and  he  is  reduced  to  this  necessity,  in 
order  to  justify  or  give  coloring  to  his  frequent  bold  assertions,  that 
'  no  one  has  attempted  even  to  infringe  our  liberties,'  and  to  his  un- 
generous reflections  upon  those  who  declare  themselves  of  a  dif- 
ferent mind,  as  'pretended  patriots,'  'over  zealous,'  'intemperate 
politicians,'  'men  of  no  property,'  who  'expect  to  find  their  account' 
in  perpetually  keeping  up  the  ball  of  contention.  But  after  all  that 
'  Chronus '  and  his  associates  have  said,  or  can  say,  the  people  of 
America  have  just  '  grounds  still  to  complain '  that  their  rights  are 
violated.  There  seems  to  be  a  system  of '  tyranny  and  oppression ' 
already  begun.  It  is  therefore  the  duty  of  every  honest  man  to 
alarm  his  fellow-citizens  and  countrymen,  and  awaken  in  them  the 
utmost  vigilance  and  circumspection.  Jealousy,  especially  at  such  a 
time,  is  a  political  virtue  :  nay,  I  will  say  it  is  a  moral  virtue ; 
for  we  are  under  all  obligations  to  do  what  in  us  lies  to  save  our 
country.  '  Tyrants  alone,'  says  the  great  Vattel,  '  will  treat  as  sedi- 
tious those  brave  and  resolute  citizens  who  exhort  the  people  to 
preserve  themselves  from  oppression,  in  vindication  of  their  rights 
and  privileges.'  '  A  good  prince,'  says  he, '  will  commend  such  virtu- 
ous patriots,'  and  will  '  mistrust  the  selfish  suggestions  of  a  minister 
who  represents  to  him  as  rebels  all  those  citizens  who  do  not  hold 
out  their  hands  to  chains,  who  refuse  tamely  to  suffer  the  strokes  of 
arbitrary  power.' 


454  -  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

"  I  cannot  help  observing  how  artfully  *  Chronus '  expresses  his 
position,  that  the  Parliament's  laying  duties  upon  trade,  with  the 
express  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue,  is  not  repugnant  to  our  Con- 
stitution. It  has  not  been  made  a  question,  that  I  know  of,  whether 
the  Parliament  hath  a  right  to  make  laws  for  the  regulation  of  the 
trade  of  the  Colonies.  Power  she  undoubtedly  has  to  enforce  her 
acts  of  trade.  And  the  strongest  maritime  power,  ceteris  paribus, 
will  always  make  the  most  advantageous  treaties,  and  give  laws  of 
trade  to  other  nations,  for  whom  there  can  be  no  pretence  to  the 
right  of  legislation.  The  matter,  however,  should  be  considered 
equitably,  if  it  should  ever  be  considered  at  all.  If  the  trade  of  the 
Colonies  is  protected  by  the  British  navy,  there  may  possibly  be 
from  thence  inferred  a  just  right  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain 
to  restrain  them  from  carrying  on  their  trade  to  the  injury  of  the 
trade  of  Great  Britain.  But,  this  being  granted,  it  is  very  different 
from  the  right  to  make  laws,  in  all  cases  whatever,  binding  upon 
the  Colonies,  and  especially  for  laying  duties  upon  trade  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  raising  a  revenue.  In  the  one  case,  it  may  be  the 
wisdom  of  the  Colonies,  under  present  circumstances,  to  acquiesce  in 
reasonable  restrictions,  rather  than  lose  their  whole  trade  by  means 
of  the  depredations  of  a  foreign  power.  In  the  other,  it  is  a  duty 
they  owe  to  themselves  and  their  posterity  by  no  means  to  acquiesce  ; 
because  it  involves  them  in  a  state  of  perfect  slavery.  I  say  perfect 
slavery,  for,  as  political  liberty  in  its  perfection  consists  in  the  peo- 
ple's consenting,  by  themselves  or  their  representatives,  to  all  laws 
which  they  are  bound  to  obey,  so  perfect  political  slavery  consists  in 
their  being  bound  to  obey  any  laws  for  taxing  them  to  which  they 
cannot  consent.  If  a  people  can  be  deprived  of  their  property  by 
another  person  or  nation,  it  is  evident  that  such  a  people  cannot  be 
free.  Whether  it  be  by  a  nation  or  a  monarch  is  not  material :  the 
masters  indeed  are  different,  but  the  government  is  equally  despotic ; 
and  though  the  despotism  may  be  mild,  from  principles  of  policy,  it 
is  not  the  less  a  despotism. 

" '  Chronus '  talks  of  Magna  Charta  as  though  it  were  of  no 
greater  consequence  than  an  act  of  Parliament  for  the  establish- 
ment of  a  corporation  of  button-makers.  Whatever  low  ideas  he 
may  entertain  of  that  great  charter,  and  such  ideas  he  must  enter- 
tain of  it  to  support  the  cause  he  hath  espoused,  it  is  affirmed  by 
Lord  Coke  to  be  declaratory  of  the  principal  grounds  of  the  funda- 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  455 

mental  laws  and  liberties  of  England.     { It  is  called  Charta  Liberta- 
tum  Regni,  the  Charter  of  the  Liberties  of  the  Kingdom,  upon  great 
reason/  says  that  sage  of  the  law,  'because,  liberos  facit,  it  makes  and 
preserves  the  people  free.'     Those,  therefore,  who  would  make  the 
people  slaves  would  fain  have  them  look  upon  this  charter  in  a  light  of 
indifference  which  so  often  affirms  sua  jura,  suas  libertates,  their  own 
rights,  their  own  liberties.     But  if  it  be  declaratory  of  the  principal 
grounds  of  the  fundamental  laws  and  liberties  of  England,  it  cannot 
be  altered  in  any  of  its  essential  parts  without  altering  the  Constitu- 
tion.   Whatever  *  Chronus '  may  have  adopted  from  Mr.  Hume,  Vat- 
tel  tells  us  plainly  and  without  hesitation  that  '  the  supreme  legisla- 
tive cannot  change  the  constitution ' ;  that '  their  authority  does  not 
extend  so  far ' ;  and  that  ( they  ought  to  consider  the  fundamental 
laws  as  sacred,  if  the  nation  has  not  in  very  express  terms  given 
them  power  to  change  them.'     And  he  gives  a  reason  for  it  solid 
and  weighty  ;  for,  says  he,  the  constitution  of  the  state  ought  to  be 
fixed.    Mr.  Hume,  as  quoted  by  '  Chronus,'  says  the  only  rule  of  gov- 
ernment is  the  established  practice  of  the  age  upon  maxims  univer- 
sally assented  to.     If,  then,  any  deviation  is  made  from  the  maxims 
upon  which  the  established  practice  of  the  age  is  founded,  it  must 
be  by  universal  assent.     '  The  fundamental  laws,'  says  Vattel, '  are 
excepted  from  their  (legislators')  commission ' ;  *  nothing  leads  us  to 
think  that  the  nation  was  willing  to  submit  the  constitution  itself  to 
their  pleasure.'     '  They  derive  their  authority  from  the  constitution ; 
how  then  can  they  change  it  without  destroying  the  foundation  of 
their  own  authority ! '     If,  then,  according  to  Lord  Coke,  Magna 
Charta  is  declaratory  of  the  principal  grounds  of  the  fundamental 
laws  and  liberties  of  the  people,  and  Vattel  is  right  in  his  opinion 
that  the  supreme  legislative  cannot  change  the  constitution,  I  think 
it  follows,  whether  Lord  Coke  has  expressly  asserted  it  or  not,  that 
an  act  of  Parliament  made  against  Magna  Charta,  in  violation  of  its 
essential  parts,  is  void.     '  By  the  fundamental  laws  of  England,' 
says  Vattel,  '  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  in  concert  with  the 
King,  exercise  the  legislative  power ;  but  if  the  two  Houses  should 
resolve  to  suppress  themselves  and  to  invest  the  King  with  the  full 
and  absolute  government,  certainly  the  nation  would  not  suffer  it,' 
although  it  was  done  by  a  solemn  act  of  Parliament.     But  such  doc- 
trine is  directly  the  reverse  of  that  which  '  Chronus '  holds ;  which 
amounts  to  this,  that  if  the  two  Houses  should  give  up  to  the  King 


456  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan. 

any  the  most  essential  rights  of  the  people  declared  in  Magna 
Charta,  the  nation  has  not  a  power  either  dejure  or  de  facto  to  pre- 
vent it.* 

In  a  previous  paper  he  had  discussed  the  same  subject, 
and  opposed  "  Chronus,"  who  had  supported  the  legality  of 
the  revenue  acts  on  the  ground  that  laws  for  the  regulation 
of  trade  should  necessarily  extend  in  a  commercial  nation 
like  Great  Britain  to  all  parts  of  the  King's  dominions,  to 
prevent  one  part  of  the  national  body  from  injuring  another. 
These  and  other  plausible  arguments  were  liable  to  mislead 
the  unwary,  and,  in  his  reply,  Mr.  Adams  said :  — 

"  Whatever  laws  are  made  in  any  society  tending  to  render  prop- 
erty insecure  must  be  subversive  of  the  end  for  which  men  prefer 
society  to  the  state  of  nature,  and,  consequently,  must  be  subversive 
of  society  itself.  But  the  Parliament,  in  which  the  Colonies  have  no 
voice,  taking  as  much  of  their  money  as  it  pleases,  and  appropriating 
it  to  such  purposes  as  it  pleases,  even  against  their  consent,  and,  as 
they  think,  repugnant  to  their  safety,  renders  all  their  property  pre- 
carious, and  therefore  it  is  subversive  of  the  end  for  which  men 
enter  into  society  and  repugnant  to  every  free  constitution.  Mr. 
Hooker,  in  his  ecclesiastical  polity,  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Locke,  affirms 
that '  laws  they  are  not,  which  the  public  approbation  hath  not  made 
so.'  This  seems  to  be  the  language  of  nature  and  common  sense ; 
for  if  the  public  are  bound  to  yield  obedience  to  laws  to  which  they 
cannot  give  their  approbation,  they  are  slaves  to  those  who  make 
such  laws  and  enforce  them.  But  the  acts  of  Parliament  imposing 
duties,  with  the  express  purpose  of  raising  a  revenue  in  the  Colo- 
nies, have  received  every  mark  of  the  public  disapprobation  in  every 
Colony,  and  yet  they  are  enforced  in  all,  and  in  some  with  the  ut- 
most rigor. 

"The  British  Constitution,  having  liberty  for  its  object,  is  so 
framed  as  that  every  man  who  is  to  be  bound  by  any  law  about  to 
be  made  may  be  present  by  his  representative  in  Parliament,  who 
may  employ  the  whole  force  of  his  objections  against  it,  if  he  cannot 
approve  of  it.  If,  after  fair  debate,  it  is  approved  of  by  the  majority 
of  the  whole  representative  body  of  the  nation,  the  minority,  by  a 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  27,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  457 

rule  essential  in  society,  and  without  which  it  could  not  subsist,  is 
bound  to  submit  to  it.     But  the  Colonies  had  no  voice  in  Parlia- 
ment when  the  revenue  acts  were  made ;  nay,  though  they  had  no 
representatives  there,  their  petitions  were  rejected,  because  they 
were  against  duties  to  be  laid  on ;  and  they  have  been  called  factious 
for  the  objections  they  made,  not  only  against  their  being  taxed 
without  their  consent,  which  was  a  sufficient  objection,  but  against 
the  appropriation  of  the  money,  when  raised,  to  purposes  which,  as 
the  Farmer  has  made  to  appear,  will  supersede  that  authority  in  our 
respective  Assemblies  which  is  most  essential  to  liberty.     Represen- 
tation and  legislation,  as  well  as  taxation,  are  inseparable,  according 
to  the  spirit  of  our  Constitution,  and  of  all  others  that  are  free. 
Human  foresight  is  incapable  of  providing  against  every  accident. 
A  small  part  of  the  nation  may  be  '  at  sea,'  as  l  Chronus  *  tells  us, 
*  when  writs  are  issued  out  for  the  election  of  members  of  Parlia- 
ment ' ;  and  to  admit  that  they,  after  their  return,  *  should  be  ex- 
empt from  any  acts  of  Parliament,  the  members  of  which  were 
chosen  in  their  absence,'  would  be  attended  with  greater  evil  to  the 
community,  the  safety  and  welfare  of  which  is  the  end  of  all  legis- 
lation, than  the  misfortune  of  their  voluntary  absence,  if  it  should 
prove  one,  could  be  to  them.     I  say,  if  it  should  prove  a  misfortune 
to  them,  for  those  acts  being  made  by  the  consent  of  Representatives 
chosen  by  all  the  rest  of  the  nation,  it  is  presumed  they  are  calcu- 
lated for  the  good  of  the  whole,  of  which  they  as  a  part  must 
necessarily  partake.     But  the  supposed  case  of  these  persons  is  far 
different  from  that  of  the  Colonists,  who  are,  not  by  a  voluntary 
choice  of  their  own,  but  through  necessity,  not  by  mere  accident, 
but  by  means  of  the  local  distance  of  their  constant  residence,  ex- 
cluded from  being  present  by  representation  in  the  British  Legis- 
lature.    '  Chronus '  allows  that  by  means  of  this  distance  '  they  are 
become  incapable  of  exercising  their  original  right  of  choosing  rep- 
resentatives for  the  British  Parliament.'    If  so,  they  cannot,  without 
a  subversion  of  the  end  of  the  British  Constitution,  be  bound  to 
obedience  against  their  own  consent  to  such  laws  as  are  there  made, 
especially  such  laws  as  tend  to  render  precarious  their  property,  the 
security  of  which  is  the  end  of  men's  entering  into  any  society.     If 
they  are  thus  bound,  they  are  slaves  and  not  free  men.    But  slavery 
must  certainly  be  *  repugnant  to  the  Constitution,'  which  has  liberty 
for  its  direct  object. 


458  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Jan.  — March, 

"  If  the  supreme  Legislative  of  Great  Britain  cannot,  consistently 
with  the  British  Constitution  or  the  essential  liberty  of  the  Colonies, 
make  laws  binding  upon  them,  —  and  *  Chronus,'  for  aught  I  can  see, 
has  not  attempted  to  make  it  rationally  appear  that  it  can,  —  it  is 
dangerous  for  the  Colonies  to  admit  any  of  its  laws.  For  however 
upright  some  may  think  the  present  Parliament  to  be  in  intention, 
they  may  ruin  us  through  mistake,  arising  from  an  incurable  igno- 
rance of  our  circumstances ;  and  though '  Chronus/  may  be  so  singular 
as  to  judge  the  present  revenue  acts  of  Parliament  binding  upon  the 
Colonies  to  be  salutary,  the  time  may  perhaps  come  when  even  he 
may  be  convinced  that  future  ones  may  be  oppressive  and  tyran- 
nical, not  only  in  their  execution,  but  in  the  very  intention  of  those 
that  may  make  them."  * 

The  winter  passed  away  with  little  of  interest,  save  an 
occasional  correspondence  between  a  few  of  the  patriots  of 
several  Colonies,  in  which  the  subject  of  union  was  consid- 
ered. But  little  ardor  was  shown,  however,  in  any  direction. 
Hutchinson  thus  alludes  to  the  condition  of  affairs  :  — 

"  The  faction  seems  to  be  breaking.  The  Dr.  Church  who  wrote 
the  Times  is  now  a  writer  on  the  side  of  government.  Hancock  has 
not  been  with  their  Club  for  two  months  past,  and  seems  to  have  a 
new  set  of  acquaintance.  By  means  of  Folger  there  have  been  some 
overtures.  I  remember  what  passed  between  him  and  you,  and 
therefore  shall  act  with  greater  caution.  His  coming  over  will  be  a 
great  loss  to  them,  as  they  support  themselves  with  his  money. 
Otis,  the  son,  is  still  confined,  but  is  said  to  be  as  rational  as  he  used 
to  be.  The  father  is  infirm,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  he  will  re- 
cover. Several  others  are  sinking  in  character  with  their  own 
party,  and  the  party  itself  is  evidently  much  weakened."  f 

There  was  truly  reason  for  depression,  but  some  stout 
hearts  still  beat  high  with  hope,  and  saw  the  dawn  of  better 
days  from  the  surrounding  gloom.  During  the  long  and 
stormy  season  the  people  pondered  over  the  state  of  the 
country,  and  discussed  public  questions  in  the  seclusion  of 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  20,  1772. 
t  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Jan.  29,  1772. 


17721  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  459 

the  inland  towns.     News  from  England  came  rarely,  and 
political  commotion  had  ceased. 

"  Except  in  this  town,"  wrote  Hutchinson,  "  there  is  now  a  gen- 
eral appearance  of  contentment  throughout  the  Province,  and  even 
the  persons  who  have  made  the  most  disturbance  have  become  of 
less  importance.  A  gentleman  who  had  assisted  them  much  by  his 
money  and  by  the  reputation  which  his  fortune  gives  him  among  the 
people  seems  weary  of  them,  and,  I  have  reason  to  think,  is  deter- 
mined to  leave  them.  The  plain,  dispassionate  pieces  in  our  news- 
papers which  are  now  published  with  freedom  and  dispersed  through 
the  Province  have  done  great  service."  * 

In  Boston,  however,  the  second  anniversary  of  the  Massa- 
cre was  not  allowed  to  pass  without  the  usual  demonstration 
which  had  been  decided  upon  soon  after  that  event.  In 
April  of  the  previous  year,  Samuel  Adams  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  the  town  one  of  a  committee  to  select  a  proper 
person  to  deliver  an  oration  in  March  following. f  Hutch- 
inson says  John  Adams  was  applied  to,  but  declined,:):  for 
reasons  which,  towards  the  close  of  1772,  he  fully  expressed 
in  his  Diary,  on  refusing  a  second  time,  when  requested  by 
Pemberton  and  Samuel  Adams. §  He  still  devoted  himself 
to  his  profession,  and  avoided  "  politics,  political  clubs,  town 
meetings,  General  Court,  &c,  &c."||  Just  before  the  time 
of  the  oration,  the  committee  reported  at  town  meeting  that 
they  had  met  together  several  times  on  this  subject,  and  had 
at  last  unanimously  made  choice  of  Dr.  Warren.^" 

Joseph  Warren  was  now  but  thirty  years  of  age,  but  his 
reputation  was  already  established  as  a  writer  and  speaker. 
His  oration  showed  the  nature  of  the  connection  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies,  in  a  constitutional  argument 
of  the  highest  ability.  It  was  listened  to  by  a  "  vast  con- 
course,''  who  were  held  spell-bound  by  the  purity  and  elo- 

*  Hutchinson  to  Lord  Hillsborough,  Jan.  31,  1772. 

t  Town  Records  for  April,  1771.  J  Hutchinson's  History,  HE.  348. 

§  John  Adams's  Diary  (Works,  H.  307,  308). 

U  Ibid.,  H.  302.  t  Town  Eecords  for  March,  1772. 


460  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [March,  1772. 

quence  of  his  language  and  the  noble  and  ingenuous  oearing 
of  the  gifted  speaker ;  and  we  can  imagine  the  pride  and  sat- 
isfaction of  Adams,  as  he  gazed  into  the  face  of  his  young 
friend,  and  saw  in  him  the  type  of  that  nobility  of  nature 
which  he  so  loved  to  depict,  as  destined  to  accomplish  the 
liberties  of  his  country.  Bancroft  alludes  to  the  close  friend- 
ship between  Samuel  Adams  and  Joseph  Warren :  "  The 
first,"  he  says,  "  now  recognized  as  a  *  masterly  statesman,' 
and  the  ablest  political  writer  in  New  England  ;  the  second, 
a  rare  combination  of  gentleness  with  daring  courage,  of 
respect  for  law  with  the  all-controlling  love  of  liberty.  The 
two  men  never  failed  each  other :  the  one  growing  old,  the 
other  in  youthful  manhood ;  thinking  one  set  of  thoughts ; 
having  one  heart  for  their  country ;  joining  in  one  career  of 
public  policy  and  action ;  differing  only  in  this,  that  while 
Warren  still  clung  to  the  hope  of  conciliation,  Adams  ardent- 
ly desired  as  well  as  clearly  foresaw  the  conflict  for  inde- 
pendence." *  On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  Samuel 
Adams  was  appointed  one  of  a  committee  to  return  the 
thanks  of  the  town  to  Warren,  and  to  select  an  orator  for 
the  ensuing  year.f 

*  Bancroft,  VI.  430.  t  Town  Eecords  for  March,  1772. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Contrast  between  English  and  Colonial  Society  in  the  Last  Century.  —  Con- 
temptuous Opinions  regarding  the  Americans.  —  Profligacy  and  Corruption 
in  George  the  Third's  Reign.  —  Democratic  Simplicity  of  the  New  England 
Character.  —  Adams  labors  to  sustain  Public  Morality.  —  Meeting  of  the 
Legislature.  —  Adams  carries  the  House  against  Hancock  and  his  Party. 

—  James  Bowdoin  Leader  in  the  Council.  —  Good  Understanding  with  Ad- 
ams. —  Reports  in  England  of  Hancock's  Desertion  of  the  Popular  Cause. 

—  Hancock  and  Cushing  call  upon  the  Governor. — He  warns  them  against 
Adams.  —  Combined  Attempt  to  defeat  Adams  at  the  Annual  Election. 

—  His  Magnanimity.  —  His  Letter  to  Arthur  Lee  in  Vindication  of 
Hancock.  —  Alarm  of  the  Patriot  Party.  —  Reconciliation  between  Adams 
and  Hancock.  —  The  Paintings  of  these  Two  Characters  by  Copley.  —  Re- 
turn of  the  Assembly  to  Boston.  —  American  Affairs  in  England.  —  Resig- 
nation of  Hillsborough,  and  Appointment  of  Dartmouth. 

Could  the  British  Ministry  in  their  misapprehension  of 
American  principles  and  objects  have  looked  into  the  Old 
South  or  Faneuil  Hall  during  the  orderly  and  decorous 
town  meetings  of  the  Bostonians,  and  noted  the  grave  ear- 
nestness depicted  upon  all  countenances,  and  the  total 
absence  of  anything  like  the  fierce  London  riots  and  the 
abandoned  habits  of  English  society  of  that  day,  the  contrast 
must  have  deeply  impressed  them  with  the  fact  that  they 
were  dealing  with  a  people  of  sturdy  virtue  and  unchangea- 
ble love  of  liberty,  and  not  with  "  the  drunken  ragamuffins  of 
a  vociferous  mob."*  But,  until  the  last,  the  most  erroneous 
ideas  existed  of  the  New  England  character.  The  ignorance 
of  the  English  people  concerning  their  American  fellow-sub- 
jects, during  the  whole  of  the  last  century  and  the  early  part 
of  the  present,  was  profound.  It  was  commonly  supposed 
that  the  Americans  were  nearly  all  Indians  and  negroes ;  and 
even  many,  whose  position  gave  them  a  somewhat  more  cor- 
rect estimate  of  those  whom  they  sought  to  subdue,  regarded 

r 
*  Lord  North  in  the  House  of  Commons,  January,  1770. 


462  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL.  ADAMS.  [March, 

the  Colonists  as  in  some  way  an  inferior  class  not  entitled  to 
the  usual  British  privileges.  Mr.  Adams  often  alluded  to  this 
English  opinion,  that  his  countrymen  were  "  tawny  savages  ";* 
and  Otis,  in  1765,  adverts  to  the  flippant  use  of  the  phrase 
"  our  American  Colonies"  and  replies,  "  Whose  Colonies  can 
the  creatures  mean?  "  For  a  century  and  a  half  a  people 
had  been  growing  up  across  the  ocean,  almost  unknown  and 
uncared  for,  causing  no  expense  to  the  parent  country  for 
their  government,  and  supposed  to  be  important  only  as  con- 
sumers of  British  manufactures.  They  had  conquered  the 
wilderness,  added  lustre  to  the  British  arms,  and  given  power 
and  dignity  to  the  King's  name  in  the  New  World ;  but  they 
were  still  considered  rather  as  vassals  or  a  lower  caste  of 
human  beings  than  as  fellow-subjects.  Under  oppression 
they  had  suffered  long  and  patiently,  still  reluctant  to  sever 
the  bonds  of  affection,  speaking  of  England  as  "  home,"  and 
believing  that  government  would  not  drive  them  to  despera- 
tion. And  now  the  horrors  of  war  were  to  be  forced  upon 
them  for  refusing  to  surrender  their  most  precious  liberties. 
The  contrast  in  the  character  of  English'  and  Colonial  soci- 
ety at  this  epoch  is  too  remarkable  not  to  challenge  attention. 
In  New  England,  the  fountain  of  civil  freedom  in  America, 
the  strict  religious  sentiments  of  the  early  settlers  prevailed. 
Corruption  in  public  life,  until  the  time  of  the  revenue  acts 
and  the  crown  commissioners,  was  rare,  if  there  were  any 
instances.  The  elective  franchise  existed  among  the  "  free- 
holders "  with  spotless  purity,  and  perfect  freedom  of  debate 
and  a  free  press  supported  the  public  liberties.  The  mar- 
riage vow  was  held  sacred.  A  cordial  but  dignified  manner 
characterized  the  social  intercourse  of  the  wealthy  and  better 
educated,  to  which  some  of  the  fashions,  but  few  of  the  ex- 
travagances, of  the  English  style  imparted  a  certain  courteous 

*  See  the  letter  of  the  House  to  the  agent  Deherdt,  Jan.  13,  1768,  in  which 
Mr.  Adams  alludes  to  the  contemptuous  tone  of  the  British  people  and?  press 
towards  the  Americans.  See  also  Chap.  XXXIV.,  and  Curwen's  Journal, 
Dec.  18,  1776. 


1772.]  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  463 

formality  of  address.  Some  maintained  no  little  state  in 
their  residences.  Social  meetings  were  common,  and  the 
topics  of  the  day  were  discussed  at  them  with  freedom ;  while 
at  the  reunions  of  the  mothers  and  daughters  innocent  pleas- 
ures were  mingled  with  industrial  pursuits,  which  eventually 
assumed  a  patriotic  character  for  the  fostering  of  home  man- 
ufactures. Several  of  the  most  opulent  citizens  lived  with 
elegance  and  profusion.  John  Hancock  stood  prominent 
among  these,  and  in  the  splendor  of  his  equipage,  and  the 
costliness  of  his  dwelling  and  furniture,  set  the  example  of 
fashion  to  those  of  his  condition  in  life ;  —  and  yet  the  most 
boundless  wealth  could  not  secure  a  tithe  of  the  luxuries 
now  within  the  reach  of  the  humblest  citizen. 

People  of  a  lower  class  earned  a  hard  living  by  constant 
industry.  Labor  was  honorable,  and  secured  position  and 
respectability.  A  competence  and  the  comforts  of  a  home 
were  the  aim  of  nearly  every  young  man.  Conveniences 
which  to-day,  from  their  cheapness  and  general  use  are 
scarcely  thought  of,  except  when  a  momentary  deprivation 
brings  a  realization  of  their  value,  had  not  then  entered  into 
the  wildest  imagination.  The  people  inherited  hardihood 
and  virtue  from  their  forefathers,  had  few  sources  of  public 
amusement,  and  were  taught,  not  only  by  precept,  but  by 
their  circumstances  of  life  and  honest  struggles  for  a  liveli- 
hood, in  the  face  of  a  niggardly  soil,  a  short  season,  and  a 
treacherous  climate,  to  shun  unmanly  pleasures  and  extrav- 
agances. 

But,  in  England,  during  the  reign  of  George  the  Third, 
society  among  both  sexes  had  reached  the  extreme  of  profli- 
gacy, corruption,  and  immorality.  The  severe  virtues  of  the 
New  England  creed  and  practice,  if  known,  would  have 
been  ridiculed  in  polite  society,  where  all  sacred  things 
were  habitually  treated  with  disrespect.  The  rotten  borough 
system,  by  which  seats  in  Parliament  were  openly  bought 
and  sold,  was  but  a  small  portion  of  the  universal  depravity. 
The  Twelfth  Parliament,  which  closed  in  1768,  "  had  never 


464  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

been  rivalled  for  its  bold  profligacy."  It  was  the  most 
"  shameless  in  its  corruption  "  of  any  that  had  ever  been 
known.  "  It  was  corrupt,  and  knew  itself  to  be  corrupt, 
and  made  a  jest  of  its  corruption."  Nor  was  this  changed 
when  the  New  House  succeeded.  "  Corruption  lost  nothing 
of  its  effrontery "  ;  ten  and  even  a*  hundred  thousand 
pounds  were  paid  for  boroughs ;  *  and  the  purchasers  were 
the  legislators  whose  measures  stripped  England  of  her  great 
inheritance,  —  America.  In  this  reign,  too,  the  streets  of 
London  were  infested  with  bold  thieves,  who  did  not  scruple 
to  stop  carriages  in  the  public  thoroughfares.  Franklin  bears 
witness  to  the  mobs  and  riots  at  this  time.  Clergymen,  by 
their  loose  morals,  cast  discredit  upon  the  Church,  and  it  was 
fashionable  to  scoff  at  religion.  The  greatest  statesmen  were 
notorious  for  their  excesses.  The  beaus  were  perfumed  and 
painted  like  women,  took  a  woman's  time  over  the  toilette, 
wore  silks,  brocades,  and  lace  embroidery,  and,  even  to  cross 
the  street,  were  carried  in  chairs.  Gaming  was  the  reigning 
vice,  in  which  all  classes  engaged  :  whole  fortunes  were  lost 
and  won  at  a  sitting,  and  ladies  compromised  themselves  at 
the  card-table.  Some  of  the  chief  places  of  resort  where 
fashionable  ladies  and  gentlemen  assembled,  such  as  Ran- 
elagh,  Yauxhall,  Mrs.  Cornely's,  and  the  Pantheon,  were 
sinks  of  indescribable  infamy ;  and  Mr.  Massey,  in  his  History 
of  this  period,  declares  that,  from  the  accession  of  the  House 
of  Hanover  to  the  end  at  least  of  the  first  ten  years  of  the 
reign  of  George  the  Third,  the  depravity  of  English  manners 
was  not  excelled  in  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire  or 
the  decay  of  the  old  French  monarchy. f 

It  was  to  guard  their  own  remote  land  from  the  like  vices, 
that  the  Boston  press  constantly  enjoined  upon  the  people 
frugality,  moderation,  and  temperance.  Samuel  Adams, 
above  all  others,  interwove  these  counsels  into  his  writings, 
and  never  ceased  to  warn  his  countrymen,  "  in  their  little 

*  Compare  Bancroft,  VI.  137,  147. 

t  See  Massey's  History  of  the  Reign  of  George  HI. 


1772.]  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  465 

corner  of  the  world,"  against  the  introduction  of  English 
luxuries  and  effeminacy.  Devoid  of  bigotry  or  intolerance 
in  any  form,  he  could  promote  innocent  pleasures,  but 
sternly  warred  against  the  demoralizing  influence  of  their 
foreign  invaders,  which  he  held  up  as  embodied  in  "  standing 
armies  and  ships  of  war,  episcopates,  and  their  numerous 
ecclesiastical  retinue,  pensioners,  placemen,  and  other  job- 
bers for  an  abandoned  and  shameless  Ministry,  hirelings, 
pimps,  parasites,  panders,  prostitutes,  and  whores."  *  He 
held  that  the  "  religion  and  public  liberty  of  a  people  are 
intimately  connected,"  and  he  warned  his  readers  of  the  ap- 
parent plan  to  poison  their  morals,  as  a  preliminary  to  the 
destruction  of  their  liberties.!  "  Remember,  my  country- 
men," said  he,  "  it  will  be  betfer  to  have  your  liberties 
wrested  from  you  by  force,  than  to  have  it  said  that  you 
implicitly  surrendered  them." 

After  nine  months  had  passed  since  the  session  of  the 
last  year,  the  Legislature  was  called  together  on  the  8th  of 
April,  at  Cambridge.  Cushing  being  sick  and  absent,  John 
Hancock  was  chosen  Speaker,  and  accepted  by  the  Governor ; 
for,  though  both  Bernard  and  Hutchinson  had  repeatedly 
rejected  him  as  a  councillor,  it  was  deemed  the  better  pol- 
icy, for  reasons  already  given,  to  approve  of  the  selection. 
The  plans  of  Hancock  and  his  friends  were  immediately  dis- 
closed. When  a  sufficient  number  to  make  a  quorum  had 
appeared,  Hancock  had  moved  that  a  message  be  sent  to  the 
Governor  to  desire  that,  "  in  consideration  of  the  inconven- 
iences of  their  sitting  at  Cambridge,"  the  Assembly  should 
be  removed  to  Boston.^:  "  This,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  was  all 
the  Governor  desired.  He  was  willing  to  consider  it  as  giving 
up  the  other  point  of  right."  §     The  party  who,  in  the  pre- 

*  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  7,  1771.  On  the  political  cor- 
ruption of  England,  see  also  a  quotation  from  Samuel  Adams,  a3  "  A  Relig- 
ious Politician,"  in  Chap.  XXXIX. 

t"  Valerius  Poplicola,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  5,  1772. 

\  Journal  of  the  House,  April  8,  1775. 

§  Hutchinson's  History,  HI.  348. 
VOL.   I.  30 


466  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

vious  year,  under  the  leadership  of  Hancock,  had  nearly 
brought  about  a  humiliating  compliance,  were  evidently 
now  determined  to  pursue  the  same  object.  The  journals 
show  that  this  motion  was  made  before,  and  not  after,  his 
election  as  Speaker,  thus  indicating  a  preconcerted  arrange- 
ment. A  retreat  from  the  vital  position  which,  for  three 
years,  had  been  zealously  and  religiously  adhered  to  by  the 
Legislature,  save  during  the  temporary  disaffection  in  the 
previous  spring  under  the  leadership  of  Otis  and  Hancock, 
would  have  led  to  further  concessions  to  the  artful  persua- 
siveness of  Hutchinson,  and  must  have  seriously  endangered 
the  cause.  Fortunately,  however,  Adams  was  prepared  for 
the  emergency.  After  a  close  though  brief  contest,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  defeating  the  motion,  but  "  by  three  or  four  voices 
only,"  *  as  Hutchinson  immediately  after  wrote  to  England, 
so  equally  divided  were  the  members.  In  the  Council,  to 
carry  out  the  arrangements,  the  same  motion  was  made,  but 
was  killed  by  Bowdoin,  "  the  principal  supporter  of  the  oppo- 
sition to  government "  in  that  body.  Bowdoin,  through  the 
whole  of  this  discussion,  maintained  his  characteristic  inflex- 
ibility of  temper,  and  was  true  as  steel  to  American  princi- 
ples. He  was  leader  in  the  Council,  where  he  composed 
most  of  the  state  papers,  which  were  generally  in  consonance 
with  those  of  the  House.  A  few  years  before,  Andrew  Eliot 
wrote  of  the  Council :  "  The  papers  they  have  lately  com- 
posed are  said  to  be  written  by  Mr.  Bowdoin,  a  gentleman 
of  learning,  integrity,  and  fortune.  At  present  the  Board  is 
under  his  influence.  I  wish  they  may  never  be  under  a 
worse  direction."!  Between  Bowdoin  and  Samuel  Adams  a 
perfect  understanding  existed,  so  that  the  plans  of  opposition 
of  the  two  bodies  were  usually  in  harmony.  Bowdoin  was 
of  French  Huguenot  descent,  inherited  a  large  fortune  for 
those  days,  and  was  widely  respected  for  his  scientific  attain- 
ments, especially  in  mathematics  and  astronomy.     His  state 

*  Hutchinson  to ,  April,  1772. 

t  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Jan.  29,  1769. 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  467 

papers  were  sound,  statesmanlike  documents,  though  less 
decided  in  character  than  those  of  Adams  and  Hawley  in  the 
House.  Hutchinson,  who  always  truckled  to  wealth,  was  re- 
markably civil  to  Bowdoin,  and  for  some  time  indulged  hopes 
of  bringing  him  over  by  flattery,  but  at  length  abandoned 
the  design.     He  now  wrote  to  a  friend  in  England :  — 

"  Of  the  two  men  you  mentioned,  one  on  the  Common  and  the 
other  near  it,  I  have  found  the  first  pliable,  and  have  made  great 
use  of  him,  and  expect  to  make  more.  The  other  is  envious,  and 
with  dark  secret  plottings  endeavors  to  distress  government;  and 
although  I  am  upon  terms  of  civility  with  him,  yet,  when  the  faction 
in  the  House  have  any  point  to  carry,  they  are  sure  of  his  support 
in  Council,  and  he  is  as  obstinate  as  a  mule.  I  do  not  find  the 
advice  that  his  son-in-law  is  like  to  be  provided  for  in  England  has 
any  effect  upon  him.  If  I  see  any  chance  for  bringing  him  over, 
and  making  him  a  friend  to  government,  I  will  try  it.  In  the  mean 
time  I  will  bear  with  his  opposition,  as  I  have  done  for  several  years 


In  a  message  during  the  session,  the  Governor  had  in- 
formed the  members  that,  if  mere  convenience  had  been 
urged  in  previous  sessions,  he  might  have  returned  them  to 
Boston,  but  that  he  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  do  so  while 
they  persisted  in  the  denial  of  the  prerogative  of  the  Crown 
to  convene  them  wherever  it  was  deemed  proper.  Samuel 
Adams  replied  to  the  speech  :  — 

"  We  have  maturely  considered  this  point ;  and  are  still  firmly  in 
opinion  that  such  instruction  is  repugnant  to  the  royal  charter, 
wherein  the  Governor  is  vested  with  the  full  power  of  adjourning, 
proroguing,  and  dissolving  the  General  Assembly,  as  he  shall  judge 
necessary.  Nothing  in  the  charter  appears  to  us  to  afford  the  least 
grounds  to  conclude  that  a  right  is  reserved  to  his  Majesty  of  con- 
trolling the  Governor  in  thus  exercising  this  full  power.  Nor, 
indeed,  does  it  seem  reasonable  that  there  should ;  for  it  being  im- 
possible that  any  one,  at  the  distance  of  three  thousand  miles,  should 
be  able  to  foresee  the  most  convenient  time  or  place  of  holding  the 

*  Hutchinson  to  James  Gambier,  May  7,  1772. 


468  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [April, 

Assembly,  it  is  necessary  that  such  discretionary  power  should  be 
lodged  with  the  Governor,  who  is,  by  charter,  constantly  to  reside 
within  the  Province. 

"  We  are  still  earnestly  desirous  of  the  removal  of  this  Assembly 
to  the  Court-House  in  Boston  ;  and  we  are  sorry  that  your  Excel- 
lency's determination  thereon  depends  upon  our  disavowing  the?e 
principles ;  because  we  cannot  do  it  consistently  with  the  duty  we 
owe  our  constituents.  We  are  constrained  to  be  explicit  at  this 
time ;  for,  if  we  should  be  silent  after  your  Excellency  has  recom- 
mended it  to  us,  as  a  necessary  preliminary,  to  desist  from  saying 
anything  upon  this  head,  while  we  request  your  Excellency  for  a 
removal  of  the  Assembly  for  reasons  of  convenience  only,  it  might 
be  construed  as  tacitly  conceding  to  a  doctrine  injurious  to  the  Con- 
stitution, and  in  effect  as  rescinding  our  own  record,  of  which  we 
still  deliberately  approve."  * 

The  journals  record  that  the  answer  was  "  unanimously 
accepted,"  and  Adams  was  on  the  committee  to  present  it  to 
his  Excellency.  For  the  rest  of  the  session  apparently 
little  of  importance  was  done.  The  sum  of  ninety  pounds 
was  "  allowed  and  granted  to  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  for  his 
services  as  Clerk  of  the  House,  during  the  several  sessions 
of  the  General  Assembly  during  the  current  year."  On  the 
20th  of  April  it  appears  that  "  Mr.  Adams  was  absent 
through  indisposition  of  body,  and  Mr  Pickering  was  desired 
to  officiate  in  his  place  "  ;  and  that  the  illness  was  protracted 
is  shown  by  the  order  passed  on  the  last  day  of  the  session, 
"  that  there  be  allowed  four  pounds  to  Mr.  John  Pickering, 
Jr.,  for  his  services  during  Mr.  Adams's  absence,"  and  the 
record  that  he  was  sworn  in  as  Clerk.  It  is  a  curious  and 
significant  fact  that  the  journals  contain  no  public  document 
or  state  paper  of  any  kind  during  this  time. 

The  Governor  replied  to  the  answer  (now  copied  from  Mr. 
Adams's  autograph)  in  a  labored  address,  supporting  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  prerogative,  and  the  right  and  necessity  of  royal 
instructions  to  guide  the  Executive  in  all  matters.     "  I  have 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  315. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  469 

never  heard,"  he  says,  "  that  the  King's  authority  to  give 
such  instructions  was  ever  called  in  question  until  within 
these  two  years.  Instructions  from  the  Crown  had  been  in 
fact  part  of  your  Constitution  for  fourscore  years  together." 
And  pronouncing  the  whole  argument  of  the  House  a  fal- 
lacy, he  dissolved  them  with  a  bit  of  flattery  as  to  their  good 
disposition.*  The  annual  elections  were  at  hand,  and  he 
hoped  to  find  the  New  Assembly  in  May  equally  well  dis- 
posed. Feeling  quite  complacent  over  his  speech,  he  wrote 
to  a  friend  in  England  immediately  after  the  close  of  the 
session :  — 

"  I  think  we  have  so  divided  the  faction  that  it  must  be  something 
very  unfortunate  which  can  unite  them  again.  I  should  be  ashamed 
of  laboring  a  point  so  self-evident,  as  I  have  done  in  my  speech  at 
the  close  of  the  Assembly,  if  there  had  not  been  a  necessity  of  re- 
moving the  prejudices  which  are  upon  the  minds  of  the  body  of  the 
people  from  the  plausible  messages  of  the  House  and  of  the  Coun- 
cil also  in  former  sessions.  I  am  told  that  it  has  had  its  effect  upon 
the  members  also,  and  that  Mr.  Hancock,  upon  hearing  it,  declared 
the  controversy  to  be  over.  The  distemper  of  the  late  times  has 
brought  not  only  into  the  House,  but  the  Council,  the  lower  order 
of  the  people,  from  whom  nothing  liberal  can  be  expected."  f 

The  enmity  of  Hancock,  and  his  opposition  to  the  policy 
and  measures  of  Adams,  had  now  lasted  an  entire  year, 
during  which  the  two  men  had  held  no  intercourse,  and 
though,  for  obvious  reasons,  their  names  appeared  on  the 
same  legislative  and  town  committees,  they  could  not  have 
acted  together.  Adams  was  not  for  a  moment  deterred 
from  his  purpose ;  on  the  contrary,  he  devoted  himself  to 
it  all  the  more,  apprehending  greater  danger  to  the  com- 
mon liberties.  The  press  still  teemed  with  his  essays,  and 
he  continued  his  correspondence  with  gentlemen  in  England 
and  the  other  Colonies.  The  public  saw  this  disagreement 
with  alarm,  many  fearing  the  division  would  prove  disas- 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  pp.  316-320. 

t  Hutchinson  to  a  person  unknown,  April  28,  1772. 


470  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

trous.  Intelligence  of  Hancock's  supposed  desertion  reached 
England,  probably  by  the  letters  of  Loyalists  who  wrote  less 
guardedly  than  Hutchinson  appears  to  have  done.  Arthur 
Lee,  in  the  following  winter,  addressing  Mr.  Adams  from 
London,  says,  "  Mr.  Wilkes  tells  me  he  has  information  of 
Mr.  Hancock's  having  deserted  the  cause,  but  I  hope  he  is 
misinformed."  *  The  difference  had  then  been  arranged  by 
the  mutual  friends  of  the  parties,  and  Adams  vindicated 
Hancock  from  the  charge ;  for,  as  it  proved,  all  the  influ- 
ence of  Hutchinson  and  his  agents  had,  in  the  end,  been 
ineffectual  to  bring  him  over. 

"  Mr.  Wilkes,"  replied  Adams,  "  was  certainly  misinformed  when 
he  was  told  that  Mr.  H.  had  deserted  the  cause  of  liberty.  Great 
pains  had  been  taken  to  have  it  thought  to  be  so,  and,  by  a  scurvy 
trick  of  lying,  the  adversaries  effected  a  coolness  between  that  gentle- 
man and  some  others  who  were  zealous  in  that  cause ;  but  it  was  of 
short  continuance,  for  their  falsehood  was  soon  detected.  Lord  Hills- 
borough, as  I  suppose,  was  soon  informed  of  the  imaginary  con- 
quest, for  I  have  it  upon  such  grounds  as  I  rely  upon,  that  he  wrote 
to  the  Governor  that  he  had  it  in  command  from  the  highest  author- 
ity to  enjoin  him  to  promote  Mr.  H.  upon  every  occasion.  Accord- 
ingly, though  he  had  before  been  frowned  upon,  and  often  negatived 
both  by  Bernard  and  Hutchinson,  the  latter,  who  can  smile  sweetly, 
even  upon  the  man  he  hates,  when  he  is  instructed  or  it  is  his  duty 
to  do  so,  fawned  and  flattered  one  of  the  heads  of  the  faction,  and  at 
length  approved  of  him  when  he  was  again  chosen  by  an  unani- 
mous vote  a  councillor  the  last  May.  To  palliate  this  inconsistent 
conduct,  it  was  previously  given  out  that  Mr.  H.  had  deserted  the 
faction,  and  become,  as  they  term  each  other,  a  friend  to  govern- 
ment. But  he  had  spirit  enough  to  refuse  a  seat  at  the  Board,  and 
continue  a  member  of  the  House,  where  he  has,  in  every  instance, 
joined  with  the  friends  of  the  Constitution  in  opposition  to  the 
measures  of  a  corrupt  administration ;  and,  in  particular,  no  one 
has  discoursed  with  more  firmness  against  the  independency  of  the 
Governor  and  the  judges  than  he."  f 

*  Arthur  Lee  to  Samuel  Adams,  Jan.  25,  1773. 

t  Adams  to  Lee,  April  12,  1773.     Compare  what  is  said  in  relation  to 


1772.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  471 

The  magnanimity  of  Adams's  character  is  delineated  in 
every  line  of  this  extract.  Much  as  he  had  suffered,  the 
grandeur  of  the  issue  made  him  forget  the  past ;  and  gener- 
ously ignoring  himself,  as  usual,  he  placed  others  in  sight, 
careless  of  his  own  deserts,  so  that  any  nearer  approach  was 
made  to  the  great  goal.  But  the  reconciliation  had  not 
taken  place  in  May  of  the  present  year ;  and  as  the  spring 
elections  approached,  the  Loyalists,  deceived  by  the  apparent 
aspect  of  affairs,  determined,  if  possible,  to  defeat  the  elec- 
tion of  Samuel  Adams  to  the  Legislature  by  making  a  com- 
bined effort  against  him  among  themselves,  aided  by  such 
of  his  own  party  as  could  be  worked  upon.  Could  he  be 
left  out,  not  only  would  the  Assembly  be  deprived  of  his 
services,  but  the  moral  effect  of  such  a  triumph  would  be 
generally  felt.  Both  parties  used  their  best  efforts.  The 
day  before  the  election,  there  appears  in  the  journal  of  the 
"  North  End  Caucus  Club  "  this  record :  — 

"  Voted,  That  this  body  will  use  their  influence  that  Thomas 
Cushing,  Samuel  Adams,  John  Hancock,  and  William  Phillips  be 
Representatives  for  the  year  ensuing."  "  Voted,  That  Gibbons 
Sharp,  Nathaniel  Barber,  &c,  be  a  committee  to  distribute  votes 
for  these  gentlemen." 

Among  the  members  of  this  club  appear  the  names  of 
Samuel  Adams,  Paul  Revere,  John  Ballard,  John  Adams, 
Dr.  Warren,  J.  Greenleaf,  Samuel  White,  and  others  of 
political  influence  in  the  town.  Their  action  was  well  timed 
in  the  instance  of  Adams,  against  whom  the  most  industrious 
exertions  were  made.  The  election  was  on  the  6th,  and  the 
votes  of  the  seven  hundred  freeholders  were  more  divided 
than  had  ever  been  known.  Cushing  had  six  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  ;  Hancock,  six  hundred  and  ninety  ;  Phillips,  six 
hundred  and  eighty-eight ;  and  Adams,  five  hundred  and  five  ; 

Hillsborough's  letter,  with  Hutchinson's  letter  to  Pownall,  dated  Oct.  17, 1771, 
(ante,  p.  438),  in  which  these  words  are  repeated,  and  indicating  that  Samuel 
Adams  had  secret  sources  of  information  in  Boston.  He  was  in  error  only  in 
the  name  of  the  writer. 


472  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

and  yet  Adams  had  more  than  twice  and  a  half  as  many 
votes  as  his  opponent.*  The  very  attempt,  however,  to  de- 
prive the  public  of  their  Tribune  endeared  Adams  all  the 
more  to  his  fellow-townsmen. f  The  Assembly  was  to  meet 
again,  under  the  charter,  on  the  27th  of  May,  and  everybody 
knew  that  the  inevitable  question  of  the  removal  to  Boston 
from  Cambridge  would  be  the  first  business  ;  and  that  it  was 
prepared  for  is  indicated  by  the  following  letter  from  Hutch- 
inson to  Governor  Pownall  in  London  :  — 

"  Before  the  Court  met,  the  Speaker  and  Mr.  Hancock  came  to 
me  to  inquire  upon  what  terms  I  would  consent  to  their  returning 
to  Boston.  I  let  them  know,  that  if  there  was  anything  in  their 
address  or  message  which  tended  to  a  denial  of  the  King's  authority 
to  give  instructions  to  the  Governor,  I  would  not  consent  to  it.  The 
frivolous  objections  which  a  former  House  had  made,  (that  the 
Governor  had  a  right  to  move  the  Court  only  in  case  of  necessity, 
because  Boston  was  the  best  place,  and  all  power  was  vested  in  the 
Governor  for  the  public  good  and  the  like,)  if,  to  save  appearances, 
they  would  insist  upon  inserting  them,  I  could  pass  them  by  as  not 
worth  regarding.  They  encouraged  me  they  would  comply  with  my 
proposal  if  Mr.  Adams  did  not  prevent  it,  —  against  whose  art  and 
insidiousness  I  cautioned  them."  $ 

The  House  organized  by  electing,  as  usual,  Samuel  Adams 
Clerk,  and  Thomas  Cushing  Speaker.  The  attendance  was 
small,  for,  at  this  season  of  the  year,  time  was  especially  val- 
uable among  the  farmers  of  the  interior,  and  twenty-three 
towns  were  fined  for  neglecting  to  send  Representatives  to 
the  Assembly.  In  truth',  less  interest  was  manifested  in 
public  affairs  at  this  moment  than  had  ever  before  been 
known,  and  it  seemed  that  the  "  quiet "  and  "  content- 

*  Boston  Town  Records  for  May,  1772.     Bancroft,  VI.  416. 

t  Hutchinson  (III.  356)  says,  «  Although  this  attempt  showed  a  strong  party 
was  still  left  which  disapproved  the  measures  of  opposition,  it  proved  a  disser- 
vice to  government.  It  caused  an  alarm  and  a  more  vigorous  exertion ;  and 
no  endeavors  were  spared  to  heal  all  breaches  in  the  opposition,  and  to  guard 
against  a  renewal  of  them." 

X  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  June  15,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  473 

ment "  which  Hutchinson  and  his  satellites  were  constantly 
writing  and  talking  about  really  prevailed. 

All  the  efforts  of  Hancock  and  his  adherents,  during  the 
last  two  sessions,  had  proved  ineffectual  to  drive  the  House 
permanently  from  its  firm  denial  of  the  Governor's  right  to 
remove  them  at  pleasure  from  one  part  of  the  Province  to 
another,  on  the  plea  of  instructions  from  the  Crown.  Under 
the  leadership  of  Adams  the  great  principle  of  perfect  free- 
dom from  royal  or  ministerial  dictation  had  been  preserved, 
though  only  by  the  most  unremitting  efforts.  When  the  As- 
sembly came  together  again,  it  was  evident  that  the  attempt 
to  make  them  approve  of  an  address  which  should  yield  the 
point  to  the  Governor  would  be  hopeless.  The  "  art  and 
insidiousness "  of  Adams,  against  which  Hutchinson  had 
been  so  careful  to  caution  Hancock  and  Cushing,  was  too 
much  for  even  their  combined  exertions.  The  vital  impor- 
tance of  the  issue  had  become  apparent,  and  contention  on 
that  subject  was  at  an  end.  The  mutual  friends  of  Adams 
and  Hancock  at  last  brought  about  a  reconciliation,  and 
there  were  no  further  combinations,  either  on  the  part  of 
the  royalists  to  divide  the  party,  or  on  that  of  Hancock  and 
his  late  supporters  to  oppose  the  policy  of  Samuel  Adams. 
The  Governor,  in  pursuance  of  the  plan  already  revealed  in 
his  correspondence,  presently  approved  of  Hancock  among 
those  who  were  elected  to  the  Council,  but  he  must  have 
been  equally  chagrined  and  surprised  at  receiving  a  direct 
refusal  from  the  object  of  his  designs  to  accept  of  the  honor. 
It  appears,  in  the  journals,  that  Mr.  Hancock  assigned  his 
reasons  at  the  time  for  refusing,  but  they  are  not  recorded. 
That  Samuel  Adams  and  his  friends  influenced  him  to  this 
course  is  beyond  question.  The  next  day  Hutchinson  wrote 
to  Bernard  on  the  election  in  the  House  for  the  Board.  He 
says :  — 

"  We  have  just  finished  our  election.  I  believe  I  told  you  that 
Brattle,  Gray,  and  Hall  are  firm  friends  to  government.  Adams 
pushed  at  no  others,  and  yet  failed  in  all  of  them.     There  was  only 


474  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [May, 

one  vacancy,  except  what  was  made  by  the  two  negatived,  and  that 
was  caused  by  Henshaw's  resignation.  That  they  filled  with  Phillips 
of  Andover,  who  is  better  than  one  half  the  old  ones,  though  but 
indifferent.  The  two  who  had  been  negatived  were  re-elected.  I 
had  settled  it  some  months  ago  to  accept  Hancock,  and  I  have  seen 
the  good  effects  of  it ;  not  that  I  can  depend  upon  his  being  for  any 
time  of  the  same  mind,  but  it  breaks  the  connection,  and  they  are 
all  jealous  of  him,  and  in  the  greater  part  of  their  measures  he  for- 
sakes them.  The  other,  Bowers,  the  Lieutenant-Governor  urged 
me  to  accept,  but  he  is  so  ordinary  a  man  that  I  could  not  bring 
myself  to  it.  Phelps  of  Boston,  and  Adams  the  lawyer,  came  near 
to  a  choice.  They  would  most  certainly  have  kept  Bowers  company. 
One  that  I  have  accepted  for  two  or  three  years  past  I  wished  to  be 
rid  of;  but  I  would  have  had  him  in  the  House,  and  I  don't  know 
which  would  be  the  worst.*  It  has  been  suspected  here  that  he  is 
the  author  of  some  of  the  most  virulent  pieces  in  the  Spy.  He  cer- 
tainly prevented  the  Council  from  committing  the  printer  when  they 
were  generally  disposed  to  do  it.  I  much  doubt  whether  the  late 
favors  shown  to  one  of  his  family  in  England  will  have  any  good 
effect  upon  him.f  You  can't  conceive  how  Molineux  and  Adams, 
Cooper,  and  the  rest  of  that  clan,  triumphed  when  the  news  came  of 
that  appointment,  and  how  dejected  the  friends  of  government  were 
in  general.  I  tell  them  there  must  be  good  reasons  for  it,  which 
they  are  not  acquainted  with.     But  this  is  a  digression."  $ 

This  subject  his  Excellency  pursued  in  a  subsequent  let- 

*  James  Bowdoin. 

t  The  Governor  here  refers  to  Mr.  John  Temple,  who  married  the  only 
daughter  of  Bowdoin.  He  afterwards  became  Sir  John  Temple,  having  suc- 
ceeded to  a  baronetcy  in  England.  On  his  return  to  America,  during  the  war, 
he  was  coldly  received  by  some  of  his  old  acquaintances  who  found  reasons  to 
doubt  his  allegiance  to  the  patriot  cause,  despite  the  valuable  service  he  had 
rendered  by  exposing  Hutchinson's  treacherous  correspondence.  The  subject 
was  taken  up  by  the  State  government,  and  was  contested  both  in  the  Legisla- 
ture and  by  writers  in  the  press  with  much  bitterness.  Mr.  Adams,  being  at 
that  time  in  Congress,  received  letters  from  Professor  John  Winthrop  and 
Bowdoin  dated  November  7th  and  9th,  1778,  bespeaking  his  influence  in  favor 
of  Temple.  Adams  seems  to  have  retained  his  confidence  in  Temple  through 
the  whole  of  the  controversy  concerning  him.  The  subject  is  fully  considered 
in  Amory's  Life  of  James  Sullivan,  I.  134-138. 

J  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  May  29,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  475 

ter  to  Secretary  Pownall,   describing  the   election  of  the 
Council.     He  says  :  — 

"  You  see  I  accepted  Hancock,  who  has  for  many  months  gone  as 
far  with  the  party  as  has  been  necessary  to  prevent  a  total  breach, 
and  no  farther,  and  his  refusal  to  accept  the  place  was  not  from  any 
resentment  for  former  negatives,  but  from  an  apprehension  that  he 
would  show  to  the  people  that  he  had  not  been  seeking  after  it. 
The  measure  will  have  good  consequences,  and  end  in  wholly  de- 
taching him  from  them,  or  lessening  his  importance,  if  he  should  put 
himself  into  their  hands  again."  * 

Hutchinson,  however,  had  over-estimated  his  influence 
upon  Hancock,  who  now  threw  himself  without  reserve  into 
the  contest,  cheerfully  devoting  his  great  wealth  to  the  cause, 
and  uniting,  as  far  as  can  be  known,  in  favor  of  the  meas- 
ures of  Samuel  Adams.  His  opposition,  which  had  origi- 
nated in  a  petulant  spirit,  mingled  perhaps  with  wounded 
vanity,  succumbed  to  the  dictates  of  a  generous  nature, 
whose  impulses  were  apparent  in  many  acts  during  his  future 
career.  The  Governor,  who  was  remarkable  for  his  subtlety 
and  persuasive  arts,  might  flatter  him  to  a  certain  point,  but 
he  failed  at  the  last  hour,  and  his  confident  prediction,  based 
upon  what  he  had  observed  of  Hancock's  weaknesses,  was 
never  realized. 

Soon  after  this  reconciliation  Hancock  engaged  the  distin- 
guished John  Singleton  Copley  to  paint  two  full-length  pic- 
tures, one  of  himself  and  the  other  of  Adams,  for  his  own 
drawing-rooms.  The  artist  completed  his  task,  and  the 
paintings  hung  in  Hancock's  house  for  near  fifty  years,  when 
they  were  placed  in  Faneuil  Hall,  where  they  remain  the 
property  of  the  city.  Copley  was  a  great  admirer  of  Samuel 
Adams,  and  undertook  con  amove  the  task  of  transferring  his 
features  to  canvas.  He  sympathized  with  the  people  during 
the  earlier  part  of  the  struggle  ;  and  his  genius  being  univer- 
sally acknowledged,  he  has  left  in  Massachusetts  many  admi- 

*  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  June  15,  1772. 


476  *        LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [June, 

rable  works  of  art.  He  testified  against  the  soldiers  at  the 
town  meeting  the  day  after  the  Massacre  ;  and,  before  the 
destruction  of  the  tea,  he  endeavored,  but  without  success,  to 
bring  about  some  arrangement  between  the  people  and  his 
father-in-law,  Mr.  Clarke,  one  of  the  East  India  Company's 
agents.  Subsequently,  he  was  one  of  those  who  obsequi- 
ously addressed  Hutchinson,  and,  leaving  his  native  land  for 
England  before  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities,  he  became 
eminent  in  his  profession.  He  was  the  father  of  Lord  Lynd- 
hurst,  late  Lord  Chancellor  of  England. 

The  painting  of  Adams  has  been  called  Copley's  master- 
piece.* The  patriot  is  represented  in  the  celebrated  scene 
with  Lieutenant-Governor  Hutchinson,  at  the  meeting  of 
the  Council  and  the  officers  of  the  British  army  and  navy, 
the  day  after  the  Boston  Massacre.  The  artist  was  not  un- 
mindful of  surrounding  effects.  The  background  is  dark 
and  shadowy,  revealing  only  the  outline  of  two  columns, 
dimly  seen  by  the  faint  light  of  a  winter's  evening,  strug- 
gling into  the  curtained  apartment.  The  figure,  which  is 
of  life  size,  is  near  a  table,  on  which  are  law  books  and  the 
Colonial  charter  partly  unrolled.  Adams,  clad  in  his  usual 
plain  costume  of  dark  red,  stands  erect  in  an  attitude  of 
commanding  dignity.  His  left  arm  is  outstretched,  and 
the  rigid  forefinger  points  down  upon  the  charter,  formida- 
ble with  its  great  seal  and  engrossed  lettering,  while  the 
other  hand  holds  the  written  message  from  the  exasperated 
thousands  now  awaiting  his  return  with  the  issue  of  peace 
or  carnage.  The  iron  will  of  the  man  is  revealed  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  document,  doubling  up  within  his  tightened 
grasp,  the  effort  bringing  out  every  muscle  of  the  sinewy, 
finely-formed  hand.  Courage,  determination,  and  an  inde- 
scribable majesty  are  stamped  upon  the  face.  The  lips, 
clean  cut,  and  slightly  compressed  with  the  momentous  na- 
ture of  the  occasion ;  the  gray  hair  thrown  back  from  the 
temples  in  flowing  locks ;  the  forehead  massive  and  white ; 

*  See  the  frontispiece  of  this  volume. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  477 

the  deep  blue  eye  fixed  with  resolute  intentness  upon  the 
royal  Governor,  —  present  a  type  of  intellectual  manhood, 
corroborating  all  accounts,  written  and  verbal,  of  the  per- 
sonal appearance  of  Samuel  Adams. 

In  conformity  with  the  usual  custom  on  the  assembling 
of  the  Legislature,  the  election  of  councillors  was  immedi- 
ately followed  by  a  message  from  the  Governor  to  the 
House,  recommending  the  consideration  of  public  affairs. 
He  had  nothing,  he  said,  to  lay  before  them  of  special  com- 
mand from  his  Majesty,  and  as  most  of  the  members  were 
well  acquainted  with  the  usual  business,  he  would  not  point 
it  out  to  them.  The  House  instantly  replied  by  the  hand 
of  Samuel  Adams,  emphatically  insisting  upon  their  rights 
in  the  matter  of  removing  the  Court  to  Boston,  and  flatly 
refusing  to  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  public  business 
while  they  were  continued  in  any  other  place  than  the 
Town  House  in  Boston.  The  Governor  at  first  declined  as 
of  old,  but  the  determination  of  the  House  triumphed  in  the 
end.  Seeing  that  under  their  present  influence  there  was 
no  likelihood  that  the  affairs  of  the  Province  would  ever 
be  taken  up,  Hutchinson  consulted  with  the  Council,  who 
favored  the  removal,  and  the  Assembly  was  finally  ad- 
journed to  Boston.  Thus  ended  this  memorable  issue  be- 
tween a  citizen  Assembly  and  the  representative  of  royalty, 
—  an  issue  which,  perhaps,  as  much  as  any  other  one  pre- 
Revolutionary  event,  indicates  the  rigid  character  of  the 
New  England  patriots.  The  struggle,  which  was  eagerly 
watched  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  was  a  question  of 
right,  and  as  such  had  a  powerful  effect  upon  public  opin- 
ion, though,  in  history,  it  has  not  received  the  attention  due 
to  its  importance.  During  four  years  it  had  been  main- 
tained and  guided  by  Samuel  Adams,  who,  with  his  friends, 
found  opponents,  not  only  in  the  Loyalists,  but  in  the  antag- 
onism of  some  of  the  leading  spirits  of  the  Province.  That 
of  Otis  was  but  temporary,  and  did  not  materially  retard 
the  cause.    Hancock's  influence  was  more  potent,  and  even 


478  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [June) 

dishing,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  private  letters  of  Hutch- 
inson, was  with  Hancock  at  least  for  a  time.  But  Adams, 
by  his  inflexible  will,  had  at  last  driven  the  Governor  from 
his  arbitrary  position,  which  had  been  arrogantly  assumed 
and  malignantly  persisted  in  without  a  shadow  of  justice, 
and  in  direct  violation  of  the  charter.  The  Assembly  im- 
mediately resumed  its  proper  place  in  the  State-House. 
Hutchinson  says,  in  his  private  account  of  the  fencing 
which  preceded  the  return  to  Boston :  — 

"  I  prepared  my  speech  so  as  to  avoid  obliging  them,  being  a  new 
House,  to  take  notice  of  anything  which  had  passed  in  former  As- 
semblies. The  Council  proposed  to  the  House  a  committee  of  both 
Houses  to  prepare  a  joint  address,  which,  not  being  agreed  to,  they 
prepared  separate  addresses  as  decent  as  I  could  expect,  and  for 
form's  sake  only  I  took  into  consideration  their  request.  The 
answer  of  the  House  was  drawn  by  Mr.  Adams  in  a  coarse,  illiberal 
style,  which  I  should  not  much  regard,  knowing  it  came  from  him. 
I  suspected  he  had  a  reserve,  and,  after  I  had  complied  with  the 
request,  would  take  the  first  occasion  to  observe  that  the  House  had 
declared  that  when  I  first  removed  the  Court,  which  I  did  by  the 
King's  order,  I  was  under  no  necessity  of  doing  it.  My  zeal  to 
maintain  the  authority  of  the  King's  instructions  led  me,  by  a  mes- 
sage, to  desire  an  explanation.  This  was  improved  by  the  faction 
to  raise  the  resentment  of  the  whole  House  as  suspecting  them  of 
duplicity,  and  calculated  to  bring  them  to  an  explicit  submission  to 
a  point  which  I  had  only  required  a  former  House  to  desist  from 
disputing,  and  they,  with  a  general  voice,  declared  their  expression 
to  be  sufficiently  plain,  and  would  give  no  other  answer  to  my 
inquiries.  This  led  me  to  give  the  reason  Of  my  question,  and  to 
declare  that  whilst  the  King's  authority  to  instruct  the  Governor 
was  disputed,  I  did  not  intend  to  remove  the  Court.  This  was  on 
the  3d  of  June.  I  soon  discovered  that  the  members  universally 
declared  that,  whatever  the  person  who  drew  the  message  held  in 
his  thoughts,  they  had  nothing  more  in  theirs  than  that  they  could 
not  see  any  necessity  of  my  convening  them  at  this  time  at  Cam- 
bridge." * 

*  Hutchinson  to  Secretary  Pownall,  June  15,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  479 

The  House,  however,  it  seems,  did  just  as  "  the  person 
who  drew  the  message  "  planned  for  them ;  and  in  his  His- 
tory the  Governor  shifts  the  responsibility  of  the  removal 
upon  the  Council,  who  upon  their  oaths  favored  the  meas- 
ure. 

For  more  than  a  year  it  had  been  suspected  that  the  Min- 
istry intended  to  make  an  alteration  in  the  usual  provision 
for  the  Governor's  salary.  From  time  immemorial  it  had 
been  given  by  free  grants  of  the  Assembly,  as  directed  in 
the  royal  charter.  In  1770,  Samuel  Adams  and  Arthur  Lee 
had  corresponded  on  the  dependence  of  any  crown  officers 
on  the  Ministry  instead  of  on  the  people  ;  and  in  November 
of  that  year  Adams,  in  his  letter  of  instructions  to  Franklin 
from  the  House,  was  most  explicit  in  his  opposition  to  such  an 
unparalleled  scheme  of  usurpation.*  In  the  spring  session 
of  1771,  Mr.  Adams,  as  chairman  of  a  committee  appointed 
for  that  purpose,  had  endeavored  to  obtain  from  the  Gover- 
nor his  reasons  for  refusing  his  assent  to  the  bills  granting 
him  thirteen  hundred  pounds  for  his  salary  ;  but  his  Excel- 
lency then  briefly  replied  that  he  should  assent  to  or  reject 
the  bills  as  it  should  appear  to  him  his  duty  required.!  The 
time  had  now  arrived  for  a  direct  issue  on  this  important 
point.  On  application  to  the  Secretary,  it  was  found  that 
the  Governor  had  withheld  his  signature  to  the  bill,  and  a 
message  was  addressed  to  him,  shortly  after  the  return  of 
the  Assembly  to  Boston,  desiring  to  know  whether  provision 
had  been  made  for  his  support  as  Governor  of  the  Province 
in  any  unusual  manner.  J  The  Governor  replied,  repeating 
his  assertion  of  the  previous  year,  that  his  Majesty  was  ena- 
bled by  an  Act  of  Parliament  to  support  the  civil  govern- 
ment in  the  Colonies  as  he  should  judge  necessary,  and  now 
avowing  directly  that  his  support  in  future  was  to  proceed 
from  the  King,  he  declined  to  accept  any  salary  from  the 
funds  of  the  Province. 

*  See,  ante,  p.  371.         •  t  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  298. 

X  Journal  of  the  House,  June  6,  1772.     Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  324. 


480  LIFE   OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [July, 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  House,  in  the  present  session, 
had  been  the  appointing  of  a  committee  to  consider  this  sub- 
ject, and  now,  on  the  reply  of  the  Governor,  plainly  an- 
nouncing the  intention  of  the  Crown,  in  conjunction  with 
the  authority  of  Parliament,  to  violate  the  charter,  the 
committee,  with  Joseph  Hawley  as  its  chairman,  reported  a 
series  of  resolutions  embracing  the  entire  subject.  After  a 
clear  and  direct  statement  of  the  case,  in  a  preamble  dis- 
closing all  the  danger  of  the  innovation,  the  report  declares 
that  the  Assembly  is  the  constitutional  judge  of  the  adequate 
support  of  the  Governor  ;  that  by  a  provision  otherwise  than 
by  their  acts  and  grants,  an  important  trust  is  wrested  out 
of  their  hands.  The  fourth  resolution  solemnly  holds  up  the 
inference,  that  under  the  working  of  these  acts  there  would 
be  an  end  to  the  rightful  dependence  of  the  Province  upon 
England.     It  reads :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Governor's  having  and  receiving-  his  sup- 
port independent  of  the  grants  and  acts  of  the  General  Assembly 
is  a  dangerous  innovation,  which  renders  him  a  Governor  not 
dependent  on  the  people  as  the  charter  has  prescribed,  and  con- 
sequently, not  in  that  respect  such  a  Governor  as  the  people  con- 
sented to  at  the  granting  thereof.  It  destroys  that  mutual  check 
and  dependence  which  each  branch  of  the  Legislative  ought  to  have 
upon  the  others  and  the  balance  of  power  which  is  essential  to  all 
free  governments.  And  this  House  do  most  solemnly  protest,  that 
the  innovation  is  an  important  change  in  the  Constitution,  and  ex- 
poses the  Province  to  a  despotic  administration  of  government."  # 

These  resolutions,  which  were  reported  on  the  3d  of  July, 
were  allowed  to  lie  on  the  table  for  revision,  and  during  this 
time,  the  Governor,  alarmed  at  the  rumors  concerning  them, 
desired  to  know  their  purport.  The  House  on  the  same 
day  reconsidered  them,  and  made  certain  amendments,  the 
nature  of  which  is  not  known ;  but  Hutchinson  states  that 
the  report  "  met  with  great  opposition  from  near  a  third 
part  of  the  members,  in  several  questions  upon  the  most  ma- 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  325. 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  481 

terial  parts  of  it ;  but  it  having  been  resolved  to  print  the 
names  of  the  voters  on  each  side,  it  was  finally  carried*  by  85 
against  19."  *  Several  of  the  Loyalist  members,  despairing 
of  success  after  this,  left  the  House  and  went  home.  Hutch- 
inson says,  "  This  report  was  supposed  to  be  drawn  by  Mr. 
Hawley,  one  of  the  committee."  It  would  seem  that  Mr. 
Adams  must  also  have  been  engaged  upon  it,  and  was  in- 
strumental in  securing  its  passage.  This  is  indicated  by  a 
letter  to  his  friend,  Warren  of  Plymouth,  just  after  the  pro- 
rogation of  the  Assembly,  in  which  he  says  :  — 

"  Since  your  departure  I  have  been,  as  I  expected,  plagued  almost 
to  death  with  the  dubitations  of  Whigs  and  the  advantage  the  Tories 
constantly  make  of  them.  The  resolves  have  finally  passed,  and 
even  as  they  now  appear,  I  believe  they  chagrin  him  whom  they 
call  Governor."  f 

Before  replying  in  full  to  the  resolves,  which  seem  to  have 
created  'a  profound  sensation  among  both  parties,  the  Gov- 
ernor called  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  ruinous  con- 
dition of  the  Province-House,  its  outhouses  and  appendages, 
and  desiring  them  to  repair  it  for  his  city  residence. :£  The 
Province-House  had  long  been  the  gubernatorial  mansion. 
It  was  a  spacious  brick  building  of  three  stories,  with  rich 
exterior  ornaments.  One  of  these  decorations  was  the  King's 
arms,  finely  executed  and  gilded.  The  house  was  surmounted 
by  a  cupola,  and  a  handsome  flight  of  stone  steps  led  up  to 
the  principal  entrance.  All  the  elegance  and  formality  of 
the  olden  time  was  observed  there  in  the  ample  reception- 
rooms,  especially  on  great  occasions.  Most  of  the  govern- 
ors resided  in  the  summer  at  their  country-seats  in  some 
neighboring  town.  Bernard  had  thus  passed  much  of  his 
time  in  Roxbury,  and  Hutchinson  in  Milton.  It  had  been 
customary  for  his  Majesty's  Council  to  meet,  by  invitation 
of  the  Governor,  at  the  Province-House  on  the  accession  of 

*  Hutchinson's  History,  III.  358. 
t  Samuel  Adams  to  James  Warren,  July  16,  1772. 
}  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  330. 
vol.  I.  8L. 


482  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [July,  Aug. 

a  new  sovereign  to  the  British  throne,  or  upon  the  King's 
birthday,  or  the  like  occasions,  and  drink  loyal  toasts ;  but 
the  practice  had  by  this  time  gone  into  disuse.  The  Assem- 
bly replied  to  Hutchinson's  application,  by  the  hand  of  Sam- 
uel Adams,  that  they  were  not  unapprized  of  the  condition 
of  the  Province-House,  but  that  "  the  building  was  procured 
for  the  residence  of  a  Governor  whose  whole  support  was  to 
be  provided  for  by  the  grants  and  acts  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, according  to  the  tenor  of  the  charter,"  and  not  for  a 
Governor  "  for  whose  support  adequate  provision  should  be 
made  in  another  way,"  and,  upon  that  consideration,  they 
could  not  think  it  their  duty  to  order  the  repairs.  They 
assured  him  that  they  were  far  from  intending  any  personal 
disrespect,  and  that,  should  the  time  come  when  he  should 
think  himself  at  liberty  to  accept  his  whole  support  from  the 
Province,  he  would  find  them  ready  to  provide  a  house  "  not 
barely  tenable,  but  elegant."  This  put  an  end  to  the 
subject  of  the  Province-House,  and  nothing  exists  to  show 
whether  his  Excellency  continued  to  reside  there  or  carried 
out  his  implied  threat  of  removing  to  Milton,  where  he  would, 
have  been  difficult  of  access.* 

On  the  14th,  Hutchinson  replied  to  the  resolve  of  the 
House,  ably  supporting  the  right  of  the  Crown  to  make  such 
grants  as  it  deemed  proper  for  the  support  of  its  Governor, 
and  quoting  precedents  in  other  parts  of  the  kingdom.  He 
accused  the  committee  of  having  confounded  the  sense 
and  meaning  of  the  words  "  check  "  and  "  dependence,"  by 
which,  he  said,  a  plausible  appearance  had  been  given  to 
their  argument.  "  This  is  an  artifice,"  he  adds,  "  which  has 
often  been  made  use  of  by  writers  in  newspapers,  with  design 
to  give  false  notions  of  government  and  to  stir  up  discontent 
and  disorder  ;  but  I  am  far  from  attributing  any  such  design 
to  the  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  general." 
He  then  prorogued  the  Assembly  to  meet  on  the  last  day  of 

*  Bradford's  State  Papers,  p.  331.  The  extracts  above  are  copied  from  the 
original  draft  in  the  autograph  of  Samuel  Adams. 


1772.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  483 

September  at  the  Town-House  in  Boston.  The  parting  fling 
was  undoubtedly  intended  for  Samuel  Adams,  whom  his 
Excellency  had  already  denounced  as  "  the  writer  in  the 
incendiary  newspaper."  So  Mr.  Adams  himself  thought,  for 
two  days  afterwards  he  wrote  to  a  friend  :  — 

"  The  Governor  at  the  close  [of  the  session]  sent  down  a  message 
in  the  Bernardian  tone,  which  I  intend  to  look  over.  To  speak  the 
truth  plainly,  when  the  Secretary  read  it,  I  thought  it  a  very  inde- 
cent thing,  in'  which  there  appeared  a  studied  affront  to  the  House, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  myself  had  a  particular  share  of  it."  * 

The  measure  which  had  long  been  threatening,  and  which 
the  House  had  protested  against  in  their  late  resolutions, 
was  now  about  to  be  consummated.  On  the  7th  of  August 
Lord  Hillsborough,  who  was  on  the  eve  of  retiring  from  his 
position  as  Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  made  it  known  to  the 
Lords  of  Trade  that  the  King,  with  the  "  entire  concurrence 
of  Lord  North,  had  made  provision  for  the  support  of  his  law 
servants  in  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay."  A  week 
later,  the  Secretary  resigned,  was  created  an  Earl,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Dartmouth,  a  man  of  acknowledged  ami- 
ability and  purity  of  character,  professedly  friendly  to  the 
Colonies,  but  resolved  upon  carrying  out  the  general  policy 
of  his  predecessor.  Arthur  Lee  considered  him  "  an  insig- 
nificant character,  with  the  affectation  of  piety  and  good 
intentions  towards  the  public."  f     Adams  said  of  him :  — 

"  The  character  of  Lord  Dartmouth,  in  point  of  moral  virtue,  has 
been  unexceptionable  in  America,  for  aught  I  have  heard.  I  wish 
it  could  be  ascertained  of  all  his  Majesty's  ministers  and  servants 
that  they  deserved  such  a  character.  It  is  the  opinion  I  have  of 
them  that  makes  me  tremble  for  his  Lordship,  lest  in  the  circle  he 

should  make  shipwreck  of  his  virtue Our  conspirators  were 

alarmed  at  his  appointment,  and  I  believe  are  determined  if  they 
can,  to  impose  upon  his  credulity,  if  he  has  any  such  weakness 
about  him."  t 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  James  Warren,  July  16,  1772. 
t  Arthur  Lee  to  Samuel  Adams,  Jan.  25,  1773. 
X  Samuel  Adams  to  Arthur  Lee,  Nov.  3,  1772. 


484  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Sept.,  1772. 

Mr.  Adams,  for  a  year  or  two,  was  accustomed  to  write  and 
speak  of  this  nobleman  as  "  the  good  Lord  Dartmouth,"  but, 
as  the  great  drama  of  oppression  was  hurried  to  a  close, 
he  could  not  regard  anything  English  with  complacency.  In 
the  letter  just  quoted  he  wrote  to  Lee  :  — 

"  In  your  last,  you  expressed  your  hopes  of  the  removal  of  Hills- 
borough. I  could  not  join  with  you  ;  for  if  I  am  to  have  a  master, 
let  me  have  a  severe  one,  that  I  may  constantly  have  the  mortifying 
sense  of  it.  I  shall  then  be  constantly  disposed  to  take  the  first  fair 
opportunity  of  ridding  myself  of  his  tyranny.  There  is  danger  of 
the  people  being  flattered  with  such  partial  relief  as  Lord  Dart- 
mouth may  be  able  (if  disposed)  to  obtain  for  them,  and  building 
upon  vain  hopes  till  their  chains  are  riveted." 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Salaries  of  the  Governor  and  the  Judges  made  independent  of  the  People.  — 
Adams  arouses  the  Province  against  the  New  System.  —  He  endeavors  to 
obtain  a  General  League  of  the  Massachusetts  Towns.  —  The  Measure 
discouraged  by  Cushing,  Hancock,  and  Others. — Adams  prevails,  and  a 
preliminary  Town  Meeting  is  summoned.  —  The  Governor  refuses  to  as- 
semble the  General  Court.  —  The  Subject  considered  at  the  Town  Meet- 
ing.—  Adams  proposes  Committees  of  Correspondence. — Organiza- 
tion of  the  Boston  Committee.  —  Working  Members  not  easily  obtained.  — 
Errors  corrected  as  to  the  Originator  of  the  "Great  Invention."  —  Adams 
draits  and  reports  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonists." 

The  dependence  of  the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  upon 
the  Crown  for  their  support  was  now  certainly  known.  In 
the  month  of  September,  news  arrived  in  Boston  that  grants 
had  been  made  by  the  King,  and  warrants  ordered  on  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Customs  for  payment.  Thus,  by  the 
same  system,  an  unconstitutional  tax  was  wrung  from  the 
people,  and  then  the  funds  were  applied  to  the  emolument  of 
a  Governor  forced  upon  them  by  a  process  directly  at  vari- 
ance with  the  stipulations  of  their  charter,  and  of  pensioned 
judges  holding  their  places  under  the  Executive.  Nothing 
that  had  yet  been  done  was  considered  so  direct  and  danger- 
ous a  blow  at  the  popular  rights. 

"  The  news,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  when  some  months  afterwards  he 
reviewed  these  events,  "  was  like  thunder  in  the  ears  of  all  but  a  de- 
testable and  detested  few.  Even  those  who  had  been  inclined  to 
think  favorably  of  the  Governor  and  the  judges  were  alarmed  at  it ; 
and,  indeed,  what  honest  and  sensible  man  or  woman  could  contem- 
plate it  without  horror.  We  all  began  to  shudder  at  the  prospect 
of  the  same  tragical  scenes  being  enacted  in  this  country  which  are 
recorded  in  the  English  history,  as  having  been  acted  when  their 
judges  were  the  mere  creatures,  dependents,  and  tools  of  the  Crown. 
Such  an  indignation  was  discovered  and  expressed  by  almost  every 
one  at  so  daring  an  insult  upon  a  free  people,  that  it  was  difficult  to 


486  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ADAMS.  [Oct. 

keep  our  resentment  within  its  proper  bounds.  Many  were  ready- 
to  call  for  immediate  vengeance,  perhaps  with  more  zeal  than  discre- 
tion. How  soon  human  prudence  and  fortitude,  directed  by  the  wise 
and  righteous  Governor  of  the  world  may  point  out  the  time  and 
the  means  of  successfully  revenging  the  public  wrongs  of  America, 
I  leave  to  those  who  have  been  the  contrivers  and  abettors  of  these 
destructive  measures  seriously  to  consider.  I  hope,  and  believe, 
that  I  live  in  a  country  the  people  of  which  are  too  intelligent  and 
too  brave  to  submit  to  tyrants."  * 

Refore  the  arrival  of  this  intelligence,  and  when  only 
rumors  of  the  intended  measure  had  reached  America, 
Samuel  Adams,  after  enumerating  the  public  grievances, 
said :  — 

"  I  think  the  alteration  of  our  free  and  mutually  dependent  Con- 
stitution into  a  dependent  ministerial  despotism  a  grievance  so  great, 
80  ignominious,  and  intolerable,  that,  in  case  I  did  not  hope  things 
would  in  some  measure  regain  their  ancient  situation  without  more 
bloodshed  and  murder  than  has  been  already  committed,  I  could 
freely  wish,  at  the  risk  of  my  all,  to  have  a  fair  chance  of  offering 
to  the  manes  of  my  slaughtered  countrymen  a  libation  of  the  blood 
of  the  ruthless  traitors  who  conspired  their  destruction."  f 

The  provision  for  the  law  servants  of  the  Crown  created 
the  opportunity,  and  he  perceived  that  the  time  he  had  pa- 
tiently awaited  was  now  at  hand,  to  give  an  impulse  to  the 
cause  of  independence  which  should  never  cease  to  act.  For 
more  than  a  year  he  had  been  revolving  this  subject  in  his 
mind,  and  had  endeavored  to  prepare  the  public  for  its  in- 
troduction. 

"  Is  it  not  enough,"  he  cried,  "  to  have  a  Governor  an  avowed 
advocate  for  ministerial  measures,  and  a  most  assiduous  instrument 
in  carrying  them  on,  modelled,  shaped,  controlled,  and  directed,  to- 
tally independent  of  the  people  over  whom  he  is  commissioned  to 
govern,  and  yet  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  Crown,  pensioned  by 

*  "Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  April  12,  1773. 
t  "  Vindex,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  April  20,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  487 

those  on  whom  his  existence  depends,  and  paid  out  of  a  revenue 
established  by  those  who  have  no  authority  to  establish  it,  and  ex- 
torted from  the  people  in  a  manner  most  odious,  insulting,  and 
oppressive.  Is  not  this  indignity  enough  to  be  felt  by  those  who 
have  any  feeling  ?  Are  we  still  threatened  with  more  ?  Is  life, 
property,  and  everything  dear  and  sacred  to  be  now  submitted  to 
the  decisions  of  pensioned  judges,  holding  their  places  during  the 
pleasure  of  such  a  Governor,  and  a  Council  perhaps  overawed  ?  To 
what  a  state  of  infamy,  wretchedness,  and  misery  shall  we  be  re- 
duced, if  our  judges  shall  be  prevailed  upon  to  be  thus  degraded  to 
hirelings,  and  the  body  of  the  people  shall  suffer  their  free  Constitu-- 
tion  to  be  overturned  and  ruined.  Merciful  God !  inspire  thy  peo- 
ple with  wisdom  and  fortitude,  and  direct  them  to  gracious  ends. 
In  this  extreme  distress,  when  the  plan  of  slavery  seems  nearly 
completed,  0  save  our  country  from  impending  ruin.  Let  not  the 
iron  hand  of  tyranny  ravish  our  laws  and  seize  the  badge  of  free- 
dom, nor  avowed  corruption  and  the  murderous  rage  of  lawless 
power  be  ever  seen  on  the  sacred  seat  of  justice. 

"  Is  it  not  high  time  for  the  people  of  this  country  explicitly  to 
declare  whether  they  will  be  freemen  or  slaves  ?  It  is  an  important 
question,  which  ought  to  be  decided.  It  concerns  us  more  than  any- 
thing in  this  life.  The  salvation  of  our  souls  is  interested  in  the 
event;  for  wherever  tyranny  is  established,  immorality  of  every 
kind  comes  in  like  a  torrent.  It  is  the  interest  of  tyrants  to  reduce 
the  people  to  ignorance  and  vice,  for  they  cannot  live  in  any  country 
where  virtue  and  knowledge  prevail.  The  religion  and  public  lib- 
erty of  the  people  are  intimately  connected :  their  interests  are  inter- 
woven ;  they  cannot  subsist  separately,  and,  therefore,  they  rise  and 
fall  together.  For  this  reason,  it  is  always  observable  that  those 
who  are  combined  to  destroy  the  people's  liberties  practise  every  art 
to  poison  their  morals.  How  greatly  then  does  it  concern  us,  at  all 
events,  to  put  a  stop  to  the  progress  of  tyranny.  It  has  advanced 
already  by  far  too  many  strides.  We  are  this  moment  upon  a  preci- 
pice. The  next  step  may  be  fatal  to  us.  Let  us,  then,  act  like  wise 
men,  calmly  look  around  us,  and  consider  what  is  best  to  be  done. 
Let  us  converse  together  upon  this  most  interesting  subject,  and 
open  our  minds  freely  to  each  other.  Let  it  be  the  topic  of  conver- 
sation in  every  social  club.     Let  every  town  assemble.     Let  associ- 


488  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

ations  and  combinations  be  everywhere  set  up  to  consult  and  recover 
our  just  rights. 

*  The  country  claims  our  active  aid. 
That  let  us  roam ;  and  where  we  find  a  spark 
Of  public  virtue,  blow  it  into  flame/  "  * 

In  conformity  with  the  suggestions  thus  made  public, 
Adams  addressed  himself  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  de- 
sign of  setting  up  "combinations  and  associations."  The  fire 
of  liberty  might  be  kindled  in  numberless  hearts,  but  with- 
out an  organized  system  by  which  a  concert  of  action  could 
be  produced  among  the  many  their  struggles  would  prove 
ineffectual  against  the  concentrated  efforts  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  idea  of  the  Committee  of  Correspondence,  which 
has  been  justly  considered  as  "  including  the  whole  Revolu- 
tion," had  more  than  a  year  before  dawned  upon  his  mind  as 
"  a  grand  undertaking."  "  The  fire  within  him  burned,"  but 
he  had  bided  his  time.  That  time  had  now  come  with  the 
news  of  the  independence  of  the  judges.  "  The  Grand  In- 
cendiary of  the  Province,"  wrote  Hutchinson,  "  stirred  up 
the  inhabitants  of  Boston  to  call  a  town  meeting  to  consider 
of  a  rumor  that  the  King  had  allowed  salaries  to  the  judges 
of  the  Superior  Court."  f  This  "  stirring  up  of  the  people," 
however,  was  not  the  easy  movement  that  posterity  might 
imagine.  The  truth  is,  Samuel  Adams  was  alone  in  this 
measure,  and  found  the  greatest  difficulty  in  its  accomplish- 
ment. Besides  having  to  counteract  the  influence  of  the 
Tories,  who  seemed  to  have  penetrated  his  designs,  and  were 
aiming  to  frustrate  them,  he  was  obliged  to  exert  all  his 
powers  of  persuasion  to  instil  his  ideas  into  his  colleagues 
of  the  Boston  delegation.  Of  the  industrious  efforts  of  the 
Tories  to  prevent  the  meeting,  we  have  Samuel  Adams's 
own  account ;  but  he  wisely  remained  silent  as  to  the  oppo- 
sition of  the   doubting  and  irresolute  friends   of  liberty. 

*  "  Valerius  Poplicola,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  5,  1772. 
1  Hutchinson  to  Gage,  March  7,  1773. 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  489 

Cushing,  Hancock,  and  Phillips  were  each  dissatisfied  with 
the  measure,  and  the  first,  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  advised 
against  it.  There  is  the  most  trustworthy  contemporary 
evidence  of  these  facts.  Samuel  Cooper,  the  friend  and 
correspondent  of  Dr.  Franklin,  writing  to  the  latter,  not  long 
after  these  events,  says  :  — 

"  Soon  after  the  appointment  for  the  superior  justices  was  known 
the  town  of  Boston  had  a  meeting.  Their  Committee  drew  up  a  state 
of  the  public  grievances,  which  was  accompanied  with  a  letter  to 
every  town  in  the  Province,  desiring  their  brethren  to  express  their 
own  sense  of  these  important  matters.  Though  this  measure  was 
opposed  by  a  number  of  the  most  respectable  friends  to  liberty  in 
the  town,  among  whom  were  three  out  of  four  of  the  Representatives 
of  Boston,  from  an  apprehension  that  many  towns,  for  various  rea- 
sons, might  not  choose  to  adopt  it,  and,  in  that  case,  the  attempt 
might  greatly  prejudice  the  interest  it  was  designed  to  promote ;  and 
though  the  Governor  and  his  friends  in  every  place  did  not  fail  to 
avail  themselves  of  this  and  every  other  circumstance  to  frustrate 
it,  yet  it  had  an  effect  through  the  whole  Province  beyond  the  most 
sanguine  expectations  of  its  friends."  * 

This  statement  is  from  one  of  the  most  zealous  friends  of 
liberty  and  accomplished  ministers  of  the  time.  Dr.  Cooper 
was  intimate  with  all  the  political  movements.  No  man  who 
who  was  not  an  active  participant  in  the  drudgery  and  de- 
tail of  politics  could  be  better  informed.  His  account,  too, 
is  quite  in  accordance  with  a  letter  written  by  Hutchinson 
about  the  same  time.     The  Governor  says  :  — 

"  The  Speaker  [Cushing]  was  with  me  this  morning,  and  let  me 
know  he  had  a  letter  from  Dr.  Franklin,  and  that,  from  conversation 
with  Lord  Dartmouth,  he  thought  he  might  encourage  him  to  hope 
that  consideration  would  be  had  for  the  several  matters  represented 
as  grievances,  and  that,  as  far  as  should  be  judged  proper,  they 
would  be  redressed,  but  that  it  was  a  work  of  time,  and,  in  the  mean 
time,  he  advised  them  to  be  quiet.     I  asked  whether  the  proceed- 

*  Samuel  Cooper  to  Dr.  Franklin,  March  15,  1773,  in  Sparks's  Franklin, 
Yin.  36,  37. 


490  LIFE  OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


[Oct. 


ings  of  the  town  of  Boston  and  so  many  other  towns,  and  the  coun- 
tenance shown  them  by  the  House,  could  be  thought  consistent  with 
this  advice.  He  answered  that  he  opposed  the  town  meeting  of  Bos- 
ton as  not  advisable,  and,  besides,  he  had  no  great  expectation  at 
that  time  of  such  an  encouragement.  He  professes  a  willingness  to 
submit  to  all  the  regulations  they  were  under  before  the  Stamp  Act, 
but  he  is  not  the  person  of  the  greatest  influence  with  the  party."  * 

As  Speaker  of  the  House  the  name  of  Cushing  was  oftener 
before  the  British  public  than  that  of  more  influential  men 
among  the  patriots ;  and  it  was  his  prominent  position,  as 
the  presiding  officer  of  that  body,  which  led  Dr.  Johnson, 
when  writing  of  Colonial  affairs,  to  assert  that  one  of  the 
objects  of  the  Revolution  was  to  place  a  diadem  on  the  head 
of  Cushing  !  This,  however,  was  of  a  piece  with  the  prevail- 
ing errors  in  England  as  to  the  political  condition  of  Amer- 
ica. The  collected  letters  of  Cushing  evince  none  of  the 
controlling  force  of  character  and  tenacity  of  purpose  found 
in  those  of  Samuel  Adams.  For  a  number  of  years  before 
the  departure  of  Hutchinson,  he  prudently  kept  on  social 
terms  with  the  Governor,  holding  private  interviews  for  the 
purpose  of  eliciting  information  serviceable  to  the  cause. 
Though  his  letters  to  correspondents  in  England  breathe  the 
purest  patriotism,  he  is  solicitous  to  have  the  authorship  con- 
cealed, rather  than  incur  "  the  resentment  of  some  people 
which  he  would  choose  to  avoid."  He  was  not,  and  from 
his  nature  and  temperament  could  not  be,  a  leader  of  the 
people  ;  he  was  in  doubt  as  to  the  wisdom  of  most  of  tho 
great,  decisive  measures  of  the  Massachusetts  committees, 
and,  as  late  as  in  January,  1776,  wavered  and  sided  with  the 
proprietary  interests  at  Philadelphia  against  the  bolder  mem- 
bers who  rallied  around  Samuel  Adams  in  the  movement 
towards  independence.! 

In  order  to  call  a  legal  town  meeting,  a  petition  to  the 
selectmen  from  a  certain  number  of  freeholders  was  neces- 

*  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  April  19, 1773.     Compare  also  Bancroft,  VI.  426. 
t  See  Bancroft,  VIII.  242,  243. 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  491 

sary.  Hancock  was  a  selectman,  and,  with  three  or  four 
others,  he  rejected  the  prayer  of  the  petition,  disapproving 
of  what  seemed  to  him  precipitate  measures.*  Had  the 
efforts  of  the  "  incendiary "  ceased  here,  the  committees 
might  never  have  been  organized,  but  it  was  a  principle  with 
Adams  to  redouble  his  exertions  when  encountering  revers- 
es. He  again  went  among  the  people,  and  other  petitions 
were  set  on  foot.  Adams,  in  his  own  account  of  the  affair, 
says  that  "  three  petitions  were  presented  to  the  selectmen, 
signed  by  one  hundred  and  ninety-eight  respectable  free- 
holders and  inhabitants."  These  set  forth  their  apprehen- 
sions that  the  establishment  of  judges,  independent  of  the 
General  Assembly,  "  would  give  a  finishing  stroke  to  the  sys- 
tem of  tyranny  already  begun,  and  complete  the  ruin  of  the 
liberties  of  the  people."  f  The  last  petition  was  signed  by 
one  hundred  and  six  inhabitants. $ 

Cushing,  in  the  mean  time,  still  held  back.  "  America," 
said  he,  "  may  assert  her  rights  by  resolves,  but,  before 
enforcing  them,  she  must  wait  to  grow  more  powerful." 
"  We  are  at  a  crisis,"  was  the  reply ;  "  this  is  the  moment 
to  decide  whether  our  posterity  shall  inherit  liberty  or 
slavery."  §  Finally,  when  the  selectmen  could  no  longer 
demur,  and  when  more  than  three  weeks  had  passed  since 
the  first  effort,  they  summoned  a  town  meeting  at  Faneuil 
Hall  for  Wednesday,  the  28th  of  October.  The  press,  at 
the  same  time,  warned  the  people  that  they  must  "  strike  a 
home  blow,  or  sit  down  under  the  yoke  of  tyranny,"  and 
held  up  the  alternative  of  an  immediate  restoration  of  their 
liberties,  or  the  formation  of  "an  independent  common- 
wealth after  the  example  of  the  Dutch  Provinces."  || 

*  Hutchinson,  III.  361.     Bancroft,  VI.  426. 

t  Compare  Samuel  Adams's  report  to  the  town,  published  in  the  Boston 
Gazette,  March  29,  1773,  and  sent  out  in  form  of  circulars  by  the  Committee 
of  Correspondence. 

t  Boston  Gazette,  Oct.  26,  1772.     Bancroft,  VI.  426. 

§  Bancroft,  VI.  426. 

||  "An  American,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Nov.  2,  1772.  The  author  is 
unknown. 


492  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct. 

The  day  before  the  meeting,  Mr.  Adams  received  a  letter 
from  Elbridge  Gerry  of  Marblehead,  with  whom  he  had 
lately  become  personally  acquainted.  Adams,  now  desig- 
nated by  the  biographer  of  Gerry  as  "  the  controlling  genius 
of  the  storm,"  soon  came  to  know  and  recognize  the  decided 
principles  and  natural  abilities  of  his  friend,  who  was  then 
twenty-eight  years  of  age,  and  had  made  his  first  appear- 
ance in  public  life  as  a  Representative  of  his  native  town  in 
the  session  of  the  present  year.  Their  mutual  respect  and 
intimacy  never  ceased. 

"  I  observe,"  said  Gerry,  alluding  to  the  salaries  of  the  judges, 
"  you  have  taken  up  the  matter  in  Boston,  and  we  should  be  glad  to 
second  you,  but  for  some  difficulties  which  we  want  your  opinion 
upon.  It  is  uncertain  with  us,  whether  the  salaries  are  confirmed, 
whether  they  have  been  accepted,  or  if  accepted,  whether  the  judges, 
knowing  how  disagreeable  it  will  prove  to  the  people,  will  not  re- 
voke their  design.  When  these  matters  are  determined,  we  can 
proceed  with  propriety,  and,  should  the  salaries  be  received  (which 
D.  V.),  I  hope  we  shall  not  leave  the  subject  until  the  grievance  is 
redressed ;  and  I  think  I  am  warranted  to  say,  for  this  town,  you 
will  ever  find  it  ready  in  attention  with  interest  or  life."  * 

Adams  replied  on  the  same  day,  advising  his  correspond- 
ent that  positive  information  of  the  independency  of  the 
judges  had  been  received  by  Hutchinson  from  Bernard,  and 
that  the  town  was  to  meet  on  the  following  day. 

"I  will  write  you,"  he  continues,  "on  Thursday,  and  let  you 
know  the  event.  Our  enemies  would  intimidate  us  by  saying  our 
brethren  in  the  other  towns  are  indifferent  about  this  matter,  for 
which  reason  I  am  particularly  glad  to  receive  your  letter  at  this 
time.  Roxbury,  I  am  told,  is  thoroughly  awake.  I  wish  we  could 
arouse  the  continent."  f 

His  wife's  younger  brother  —  Andrew  Elton  Wells — had 
lately  removed  from  Cambridge,  his  birthplace,  to  Burke 
County  in  Georgia,  where  he  had  settled  and  married. 

*  Austin's  Life  of  Gerry,  I.  9. 

t  Adams  to  Gerry,  Oct.  27,  1772  {Ibid.). 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  493 

"  Your  last  letter,"  says  Mr.  Adams  to  him,  "  mentioned  the  sud- 
den dissolution  of  your  General  Assembly,  which,  I  perceive,  after- 
wards took  place.  It  appears  still  to  be  the  determination  of  the 
Ministry  to  enslave  the  Colonies,  and  the  Governors  are  to  be  the 
instruments.  It  therefore  behooves  every  Colony  to  be  vigilant, 
and  agreeably  to  the  advice  of  the  Pennsylvania  Farmer,  each 
should  support  the  others.  This  Province  seems  devoted  to  min- 
isterial vengeance.  We  have  been  long  struggling  against  the 
encroachments  of  tyranny,  which  now  threaten  its  completion  by 
the  independency  of  the  Governor  and  the  judges  of  the  Superior 
Court.  If  the  tribute,  which  is  by  act  of  Parliament  extorted  from 
the  Americans,  is  appropriated*  for  making  the  executive  power 
totally  independent  of  the  people  for  their  support,  which  is  abso- 
lutely dependent  upon  the  Crown  for  its  being  as  well  as  subsist- 
ence, there  will  be  an  end  to  freedom.  In  such  courts,  and  under 
such  an  administration,  you  will  easily  conceive  what  constructions 
of  law  and  what  decisions  the  people  are  to  expect.  I  send  you 
two  or  three  of  our  late  papers.  There  may  be  some  speculations 
upon  the  subject  in  them  which  you  may  think  proper  to  get  repub- 
lished in  your  papers."  *    . 

On  the  day  appointed  the  meeting  was  held,  John  Han- 
cock acting  as  Moderator.  After  mature  deliberation  and 
debate,  extending  far  into  the  afternoon,  Samuel  Adams, 
Joseph  Warren,  and  Benjamin  Church  were  named  a  com- 
mittee to  address  the  Governor,  requesting  information  of 
the  truth  of  the  report,  that  "  stipends  had  been  affixed  by 
order  of  the  Crown  to  the  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  of 
Judicature  of  the  Province."  The  Governor  replied  that  it 
was  by  no  means  proper  for  him  to  lay  before  any  town  his 
correspondence  as  Governor  of  the  Province,  or  to  inform 
them  of  what  advices  he  had  received  relative  to  public 
affairs.  With  this  answer  the  meeting  adjourned  to  Friday, 
the  30th,f  and  Adams,  in  the  interval,  fanned  the  flame  in 
every  direction. 

"  In  the  mean  time,"  said  he  to  Gerry,  "  I  wish  your  town  would 

*  Adams  to  Andrew  Elton  Wells,  Oct.  21,  1772. 
t  Boston  Town  Records  for  October,  1772. 


494  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Oct.,  Nov^ 

think  it  proper  to  have  a  meeting,  which  may  be  most  seasonable  at 
this  time.  For,  as  the  Superior  Court  is  to  be  held  at  Salem  next 
week,  you  will  have  an  opportunity  of  making  a  decent  application 
to  them,  and  inquiring  of  the  certainty  of  the  report  and  other  mat- 
ters mentioned  in  your  letter  to  me ;  which  inquiry  will  be  more 
naturally  made  to  them,  in  case  the  Governor  should  decline  an- 
swering the  message  of  this  town,  or  do  it,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the 
expression,  equivocally.  This  country  must  shake  off  their  intol- 
erable burdens  at  all  events.  Every  day  strengthens  our  oppressors 
and  weakens  us.  If  each  town  would  declare  its  sense  of  these  mat- 
ters, I  am  persuaded  our  enemies  would  not  have  it  in  their  power 
to  divide  us,  in  which  they  have  all  along  shown  their  dexterity."  * 

Thus  he  endeavored  to  inspire  all  around  him  with  his 
own  unfaltering  determination.  Working  zealously  and. 
wisely,  day  and  night,  by  letters  and  by  conversation,  he  lost 
sight  of  no  possible  advantage  that  could  be  gained,  and  res- 
olutely, but  with  serene  and  cheerful  aspect,  conducted  the 
public  measures.  When  the  town  met  on  the  30th,  Adams 
was  chairman  of  a  committee  to  request  the  Governor  to 
suffer  the  General  Assembly  to  meet  on  the  day  to  which  it 
stood  prorogued,  December  2 ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
meeting  expressed  its  horror  of  the  approaching  judicial 
establishment,  which  was  declared  contrary,  not  only  to  the 
plain  and  obvious  sense  of  the  charter  of  the  Province,  but 
also  to  some  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  common  law, 
to  the  benefit  of  which  all  the  British  subjects,  wherever  dis- 
persed, were  indubitably  entitled.!  The  request  for  a  session 
of  the  Legislature  was  in  pursuance  of  a  plan  laid  down  by 
Adams  in  a  letter  to  Gerry  of  the  previous  Tuesday.  The 
town  adjourned  to  meet  again  on  Monday  to  hear  the  Gov- 
ernor's answer  to  their  petition.  Very  little  enthusiasm  had 
thus  far  been  shown  in  the  movement.  After  all  the  efforts 
of  Adams,  he  had  not  been  able  to  obtain  the  names  of  more 
than  a  quarter  of  the  freeholders  on  the  petitions  for  the 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Elbridge  Gerry,  Oct.  29,  1772. 
t  Boston  Town  Records. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  495 

original  meeting,  and  the  last,  or  new  one,  was  signed  by 
but  one  in  seven,  the  number  being  one  hundred  and  six 
out  of  six  hundred  and  ninety-nine  who  had  voted  at  the  last 
May  elections.  Writing  to  Arthur  Lee  the  next  day  after 
the  final  meeting,  Mr.  Adams  sends  him  the  newspapers, 
and  thus  accounts  for  the  apparent  want  of  interest  among 
the  people  :  — 

"  At  the  first  meeting  on  the  Wednesday,  and  at  the  last  adjourn- 
ment on  the  Monday  following,  there  was  a  respectable  appearance 
of  the  inhabitants,  though  not  so  full  as  has  sometimes  been  on  occa- 
sions of  much  less  importance,  owing  partly  to  its  being  the  season 
of  the  year  when  the  town  is  filled  with  our  country  folks,  and  every 
one  is  laying  in  provision  for  the  approach  of  a  long  winter ;  partly 
to  the  industry  of  the  enemies  to  prevent  a  full  meeting,  which  they 
had  before  discovered,  —  to  prevent  any  meeting  at  all  (for  they  dread 
nothing  more)  ;  and  partly  from  the  opinion  of  some,  that  there  was 
no  method  left  to  be  taken  but  the  last,  which  is  also  the  opinion  of 
many  in  the  country."  * 

The  meeting  on  Monday,  the  2d  of  November,  was  at 
Faneuil  Hall,  and  occupied  nearly  the  entire  day,  —  the 
inhabitants  passing  out  and  in  during  the  proceedings.  "  A 
very  respectable  number  "  was  present  throughout,  and  an 
increasing  interest  was  shown.  \  In  the  forenoon,  Hutchin- 
son's answer  to  the  petition  for  a  session  of  the  Legislature 
was  received.  It  briefly  stated  that  the  charter  reserved 
to  the  Governor  the  full  power  from  time  to  time  to  ad- 
journ, prorogue,  or  dissolve  the  Assembly.  In  the  exercise 
of  that  power,  both  as  to  time  and  place,  he  had  always 
been  governed  by  a  regard  to  his  Majesty's  service  and  the 
interests  of  the  Province.  A  compliance  with  the  petition, 
he  said,  would  be  to  yield  to  them  the  exercise  of  that  part 
of  the  prerogative.  There  would  be  danger  of  encouraging 
the  inhabitants  of  other  towns  in  the  Province  to  similar 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Arthur  Lee,  Nov.  3,  1772. 

t  Compare  Samuel  Adams  as  "  Candidus,"  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  14, 
1772. 


496  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

procedures,  which  the  law  had  not  made  the  business  of  a 
town  meeting.  This  reply  was  read  several  times,  and  voted 
"not  satisfactory."  Its  principles  must  have  been  received 
with  mingled  alarm  and  indignation,  for  they  aimed  a  death 
blow  at  the  immemorable  right  of  the  New  England  towns  to 
discuss  public  affairs,  upon  which  discussions  depended  the 
efficiency  of  their  free  elective  representation.  j 

"  I  was  aware,"  said  Mr.  Adams,  in  a  letter  soon  after,  "  that  his 
[the  Governor's]  answers  would  be  in  the  same  high  tone  in  which 
we  find  them  expressed ;  yet  our  requests  have  been  so  reasonable, 
that,  in  refusing  to  comply  with  them,  he  must  have  put  himself  in 
the  wrong  in  the  opinion  of  every  honest  and  sensible  man;  the 
consequence  of  which  will  be  that  such  measures  as  the  people  may 
determine  upon  to  save  themselves,  if  rational  and  manly,  will  be 
the  more  reconcilable  even  to  cautious  minds,  and  thus  we  may  ex 
pect  that  unanimity  which  we  wish  for."  * 

The  meeting  now  numbering  about  three  hundred,  it  was 
unanimously  resolved  as  the  opinion  of  the  inhabitants,  that 
"  they  have  ever  had,  and  ought  to  have,  a  right  to  petition 
the  King  or  his  representative  for  a  redress  of  such  griev- 
ances as  they  feel,  or  for  preventing  of  such  as  they  have 
reason  to  apprehend,  and  to  communicate  their  sentiments 
to  other  towns."  ^ 

It  was  now  that  Adams  stood  up  and  made  his  celebrated 
motion,  which  breathed  life  into  the  American  Revolution, 
stamped  with  vitality  all  its  subsequent  measures,  and  ar- 
ranged under  the  rules  of  perfect  order  and  system  what 
had,  until  then,  been  a  series  of  inharmonious,  desultory  ef- 
forts, without  concentration  or  method.    The  record  says  :  — 

"  It  was  then  moved  by  Mr.  Samuel  Adams,  that  a  committee  of 
correspondence  be  appointed,  to  consist  of  twenty-one  persons,  to 
state  the  rights  of  the  Colonists  and  of  this  Province  in  particular, 
as  men  and  Christians  and  as  subjects;  and  to  communicate  and 
publish  the  same  to  the  several  towns  and  to  the  world  as  the  sense 

*  To  Elbridge  Gerry,  Nov.  5,  1772. 


1772.J  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  497 

of  this  town,  with  the  infringements  and  violations  thereof  that  have 
been,  or  from  time  to  time  may  be,  made."  * 

It  would  seem,  by  the  fragment  of  an  account  by  a  Loyal- 
ist writer,  that  the  resolves  were  not  adopted  until  night. 
He  speaks  of  the  vote,  for  sending  the  letter  of  correspond- 
ence, as  having  been  passed  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening, 
and  although  the  article  in  which  this  statement  appeared 
contained  erroneous  assertions  as  to  the  number  of  persons 
present  at  the  time,  and  was  in  that  respect  publicly  contra- 
dicted by  the  selectmen,  the  fact  of  the  night  session  is  not 
denied.  They  also  refer  to  the  very  respectable  number 
who  attended  "  through  the  day  "  and  to  the  "  three  hun- 
dred or  more,"  who  were  present  when  the  vote  was  taken, 
evidently  at  a  late  hour.  That  some  debate  succeeded  Mr. 
Adams's  motion  is  shown  in  this  same  statement  of  the 
selectmen,  who  speak  of  its  having  been  "  twice  read  and 
amended."  f  It  was  carried  at  last  by  an  almost  unanimous 
vote.  The  system,  however,  was  not  launched  upon  its 
course  without  difficulty.  Those  who  had  questioned  the 
wisdom  of  the  scheme  at  first  now  failed  to  perceive  its 
practicability  or  importance,  and  when  the  committee  came 
to  be  appointed^  it  was  found  difficult  to  obtain  members. 
Cushing,  Hancock,  and  Phillips,  three  of  the  four  Boston 
Representatives,  pleaded  private  business  and  refused  to 
serve ;  and  Scollay  and  Austin,  two  of  the  selectmen,  de- 
clined for  a  similar  reason.  J  The  whole  twenty-one,  how- 
ever, were  raised ;  and  James  Otis,  who  had  lately  returned 
from  Nantasket,  whither  he  had  been  carried,  was  named 
chairman,  as  a  tribute  to  his  former  services. 

Hutchinson  described  the  Committee  as  in  part  composed 
of  "  deacons,"  "  atheists,"  and  "  black-hearted  fellows,  whom 
one  would  not  choose  to  meet  in  the  dark."  §  "  You  may 
judge  of  this  Committee,"  said  he,  "  by  their  chairman,  who 

*  Boston  Town  Records  for  November,  1772. 

t  Statement  by  the  Selectmen,  in  the  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  7,  1772. 

%  Bancroft,  VI.  429-430.  §  Hutchinson  to  Pownall,  Nov.  13,  1772. 

VOL.  i.  32 


498  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 

is  but  just  now  discharged  from  his  guardian,  and  is  still 
once  in  a  few  days  as  mad  as  ever,  —  the  effect  of  strong 
drink."  *  It  has  been  said  of  Hutchinson,  that  "  he  was 
considerate  towards  the  orphan  and  the  widow,  and  he  heard 
private  suits  with  unblemished  integrity."  However  much 
the  praise  may  have  been  deserved,  the  unmasking  of  his 
true  disposition,  as  betrayed  in  his  private  correspondence, 
reveals  a  malignity  of  heart  and  a  cowardly  desire  to  stab 
his  enemies  in  the  dark,  which  renders  his  character  odious. 
The  Committee  was  composed,  for  the  most  part,  of  plain 
democratic  citizens,  in  moderate  circumstances  of  life,  and 
actuated  beyond  question  by  the  loftiest  patriotism.  Their 
labors  were  to  be  arduous,  without  remuneration,  and  with 
no  hope  of  reward  beyond  a  sense  of  duty  performed,  and  an 
approving  conscience.  But  his  Excellency  could  see  no 
merit,  except  in  an  abject  submission  to  a  tyranny,  which 
he,  above  all  others,  ought  to  have  discountenanced,  as  a 
native  of  the  Province,  and  one  who  had  received  innumer- 
able marks  of  favor  from  his  fellow-citizens. 

The  Committee  held  their  first  meeting  at  the  Kepresent- 
atives  Chamber  on  the  3d  of  November,  and  organized  by 
electing  William  Cooper  as  their  clerk,  wtyo  was  ordered  to 
be  present  at  all  their  meetings  and  to  keep  a  fair  record  of 
their  proceedings.!  How  faithfully  the  service  was  rendered, 
is  shown  by  the  journals.  They  are  entire  and  in  perfect  or- 
der, having  passed  into  the  family  of  Samuel  Adams  at  the 
commencement  of  the  war,  and  remained  there  for  more 
than  sixty  years.  The  Loyalists  had  good  reason  to  watch 
the  growth  of  this  novel  power  with  deep  misgivings  of  its 
effects.  The  comprehensiveness  of  the  system,  and  the  per- 
fect harmony  of  its  working,  was  soon  apparent.  Springing 
from  the  people,  it  was  a  compact  little  legislature  of  itself, 
entirely  distinct  from  any  other  power,  and  its  influence 
reached  every  part  of  the  Province.  The  first  act,  after 
organizing,  was  to  pass  a  vote  :  — 

*  Hutchinson  to  Bernard,  Nov.  10,  1772.         t  Journal  of  the  Committee. 


1772.]  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  499 

"  That  every  member  be  desired  to  declare  to  the  chairman  that 
he  holds  himself  bound  in  honor  not  to  divulge  or  make  known  any 
part  of  the  conversation  of  this  Committee  at  their  meetings  to  any 
person  whatsoever,  excepting  what  the  Committee  shall  judge  proper 
to  lay  before  the  town,  or  to  make  known  in  their  capacity  of  a 
committee."  * 

Mr.  Adams's  motion,  creating  the  Committee,  had  specified 
three  distinct  duties  to  be  performed,  —  tc^  draw  tip  ajtate- 
ment  of  the  rights  of  the  Colonists  as  jnen^_ajSLCltfistians,  and 
as  1mbjecliT"a~declaration  of  the  infringement  and  violation 
of  those  rights  ;  and  a  letter  to  be  sent  to  the  several  towns 
in  the  Province  and  to  the  world  as  the  sense  of  the  town. 
The  drafting  of  the  first  was  assigned  to  Samuel  Adams,  the 
second  to  Joseph  Warren,  and  the  last  to  Benjamin  Church. 
In  the  mean  time,  while  these  papers  were  preparing,  Adams 
wrote  to  other  towns,  urging  their  leading  men  to  aid  in 
forming  the  Confederation. 

"  Our  timid  sort  of  people,"  said  he  to  Elbridge  Gerry,  "  are  dis- 
concerted when  they  are  positively  told  that  the  sentiments  of  the 
country  are  different  from  those  of  the  city.  Therefore  a  free  com- 
munication with  each  town  will  serve  to  ascertain  this  matter ;  and 
when  once  it  appears  beyond  contradiction  that  we  are  united  in 
sentiments,  there  will  be  a  confidence  in  each  other,  and  a  plan  of 

opposition  will  be  easily  formed  and  executed  with  spirit 

I  earnestly  wish  that  the  inhabitants  of  Marblehead  and  other  towns 
would  severally  meet,  and  if  they  see  cause,  among  other  measures, 
second  this  town,  and  appoint  a  committee  to  be  ready  to  communi- 
cate with  ours.  This  would  at  once  discover  a  union  of  sentiments 
thus  far,  and  have  its  influence  on  other  towns."  f 

Gerry  replied,  with  the  assurance  that  the  steps  taken  by 
the  metropolis  would  succeed  ;  but,  said  he,  "  should  they 
fail,  the  merit  of  those  worthies  who  oppose  the  strides  of 
tyranny  will  not  be  diminished ;  neither  would  their  being 
overpowered  by  numbers  alter  the  heroism  of  their  conduct." 

*  Journal  of  the  Committee. 

I  Samuel  Adams  to  Elbridge  Gerry,  Nov.  5,  1772. 


500  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

Adams  again  wrote,  informing  Gerry  of  the  progress  of  the 
flame  in  Roxbury,  Cambridge,  and  Plymouth. 

"  May  God  grant,"  he  said,  "  that  the  love  of  liberty,  and  a  zeal 
to  support  it,  may  enkindle  in  every  town.  If  our  enemies  should 
see  the  flame  bursting  in  different  parts  of  the  country,  and  distant 
from  each  other,  it  might  discourage  their  attempts  to  damp  and 
quench  it.  I  am  well  assured  they  are  alarmed  at  the  measure  now 
taking,  being  greatly  apprehensive  of  the  same  consequences  from  it 
which  our  good  friend  at  Plymouth  hopes  and  expects.  This  should 
animate  us  in  carrying  it  into  execution. .  I  beg  you  would  exert 
your  utmost  influence  in  your  neighboring  towns  and  elsewhere."  * 

The  good  friend  at  Plymouth  was  James  Warren,  who 
had  written  to  Samuel  Adams  that  he  believed  there  would 
be  no  difficulty  in  getting  a  meeting  there,  and  seconding 
Boston.  Adams  replied  to  Warren  that  the  time  for  "  com- 
plaining "  had  passed,  and  that  it  was  "  more  than  time  to 
be  rid  of  both  tyrants  and  tyranny." 

When  the  reports  of  the  several  committees  were  prepared, 
they  were  presented  on  the  20th  of  November  to  a  town 
meeting  at  Faneuil  Hall  by  James  Otis,  who  now,  as  chair- 
man, made  his  final  appearance  in  public,  —  the  wreck  of 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  men  of  genius  that  America  has 
produced,  but  yet  sustained  by  the  care  and  sympathy  of 
some  friends  and  the  tender  reverence  of  the  people,  whose 
cause  he  had  ever  ardently  and  sincerely  supported. 

"  Samuel  Adams,"  says  Hutchinson,  writing  to  a  friend,  "  had 
prepared  a  long  report,  but  he  let  Otis  appear  in  it" ;  and  again,  in 
another  letter :  "  the  Grand  Incendiary  of  the  Province  prepared  a 
long  report  for  a  committee  appointed  by  the  town,  in  which,  after 
many  principles  inferring  independence  were  laid  down,  many  re- 
solves followed,  all  of  them  tending  to  sedition  and  mutiny,  and  some 
of  them  expressly  denying  Parliamentary  authority." 

The  report  created  a  powerful  sensation,  both  in  America 
and  in  England,  where  it  was  for  some  time  attributed  to 

*  Samuel  Adams  to  Elbridge  Gerry,  Nov.  14,  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  501 

Franklin,  by  whom  it  was  republished.  It  is  divided  into 
the  three  subjects  specified  in  the  original  motion.  The  first, 
in  three  subdivisions,  considering  the  rights  of  the  Colonists 
as  men,  as  Christians,  and  as  subjects,  was  from  the  pen  of 
Samuel  Adams  ;  his  original  draft,  together  with  the  prepar- 
atory rough  notes  or  headings,  being  in  perfect  preservation. 
It  is  important,  not  only  as  a  platform  upon  which  were 
afterwards  built  many  of  the  celebrated  state  papers  of  the 
Revolution,  but  as  the  first  fruits  of  the  Committee  of  Cor- 
respondence.* 

*  The  error  of  John  Adams,  when,  fifty  years  afterwards,  he  attributed  this 
pamphlet  to  James  Otis,  gave  rise  to  some  interesting  letters  from  both  Jeffer- 
son and  Adams  a  few  years  before  their  death.  John  Adams,  while  question- 
ing the  credit  due  to  Jefferson,  as  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
had  called  that  document  a  "  recapitulation  "  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights  by 
the  Congress  of  1774 ;  and,  again,  writing  to  Mr.  Pickering,  he  says :  "  As  you 
justly  observe,  there  is  not  an  idea  in  it  [the  Declaration  of  Independence]  but 
what  had  been  hackneyed  in  Congress  two  years  before.  The  substance  of  it 
is  contained  in  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  and  the  Violations  of  those  Rights  in 
the  journals  of  Congress  in  1774.  Indeed,  the  essence  of  it  is  contained  in  a 
pamphlet  voted  and  printed  by  the  town  of  Boston  before  the  first  Congress 
met,  composed  by  James  Otis,  as  I  suppose,  in  one  of  his  lucid  intervals,  and 
pruned  and  polished  by  Samuel  Adams."     John  Adams's  Works,  II.  514. 

The  fact  that  Otis  was  allowed  to  present  the  report  as  his  final  public  act 
may  have  given  John  Adams  this  impression;  for,  at  this  time  (1772),  he 
himself  took  no  part  in  public  affairs,  but  devoted  his  time  to  professional  pur- 
suits. Otis,  however,  had  nothing  to  do  with  preparing  the  paper,  and,  to 
the  grief  of  his  friends  and  his  country,  had  long  been  incapable  of  any  public 
service.  Jefferson,  adopting  the  "supposition"  of  John  Adams  as  to  the 
authorship  of  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonists,"  wrote  to  Mr.  Madison  a  year 
later,  that  the  "  Otis  pamphlet  he  never  saw,"  and  upon  this  his  biographer, 
continuing  the  subject  in  defence  of  Jefferson's  originality,  refers  repeatedly  to 
the  pamphlet  in  question  as  the  production  of  Otis.  (Randall's  Jefferson,  I. 
189.)  There  certainly  is  a  similarity  between  the  "Rights  of  the  Colonists" 
in  1772,  and  the  "Declaration  of  Rights  "  in  1774,  and  between  them  both  and 
the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  but  as  all  are  founded  on  the  time-honored 
principles  of  Locke,  Hooker,  Sydney,  and  Harrington,  some  of  whom  are  duly 
quoted  by  Samuel  Adams  in  his  treatise,  the  disputes  as  to  the  originality  are 
needless. 

But  John  Adams's  memory  failed  him  in  relation  to  the  Declaration  of 
Rights  made  by  the  first  Congress,  as  well  as  in  attributing  the  pamphlet  now 
under  consideration  to  James  Otis.     He  implies  that  there  were  two  Declara- 


502  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nor. 


NATURAL  RIGHTS   OF  THE   COLONISTS  AS  MEN. 

Among  thejnatural  rights  of  the  Colonists  are  these:  First,  a 
right  to  life ;  Secondly,  to  liberty ;  Thirdly,  to  property  ;  together 
with  the  right  to  support  and  defend  them  in  the  best  manner  they 
can.  These  are  evident  branches  of,  rather  than  deductions  from, 
the  duty  of  self-preservation,  commonly  called  the  first  law  of  nature. 

All  men  have  a  right  to  remain  in  a  state  of  nature  as  long  as 
they  please ;  and  in  case  of  intolerable  oppression,  civil  or  religious, 
to  leave  the  society  they  belong  to,  and  enter  into  another. 

When  men  enter  into  society,  it  is  by  voluntary  consent;  and 
they  have  a  right  to  demand  and  insist  upon  the  performance  of 
such  conditions  and  previous  limitations  as  form  an  equitable  origi- 
nal compact. 

Every  natural  right  not  expressly  given  up,  or,  from  the  nature 
of  a  social  compact,  necessarily  ceded,  remains. 

All  positive  and  civil  laws  should  conform,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the 
law  of  natural  reason  and  equity. 

As  neither  reason  requires  nor  religion  permits  the  contrary, 
every  man  living  in  or  *  out  of  a  state  of  civil  society  has  a  right 
peaceably  and  quietly  to  worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of 
his  conscience. 

"Just  and  true  liberty,  equal  and  impartial  liberty,"  in  matters 
spiritual  and  temporal,  is  a  thing  that  all  men  are  clearly  entitled  to 
by  the  eternal  and  immutable  laws  of  God  and  nature,  as  well  as  by 
the  law  of  nations  and  all  well-grounded  municipal  laws,  which  must 
have  their  foundation  in  the  former. 

In  regard  to  religion,  mutual  toleration  in  the  different  professions 
thereof  is  what  all  good  and  candid  minds  in  all  ages  have  ever 

tions,  the  one  of  Rights,  and  the  other  of  Violations,  which  is  manifestly  in- 
correct. It  would  seem,  too,  that  any  attempt  to  lessen  the  credit  of  Jefferson, 
by  showing  that  the  essence  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  contained 
in  Samuel  Adams's  pamphlet  of  1772  and  the  Declaration  of  Rights  in  1774, 
must  reflect  upon  whoever  claims  the  authorship  of  the  latter  (since  the  senti- 
ments are  identical),  unless  it  be  conceded  that  Samuel  Adams,  as  is  more 
than  probable,  was  largely  engaged  in  composing  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 
and  introduced  into  that  paper  the  same  principles  he  had  advanced  in  1772. 


1772.]  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL   ADAMS.  503 

practised  and,  both  by  precept  and  example,  inculcated  on  mankind. 
And  it  is  now  generally  agreed  among  Christians  that  this  spirit  of 
toleration,  in  the  fullest  extent  consistent  with  the  being  of  civil 
society,  is  the  chief  characteristical  mark  of  the  true  Church*  In- 
somuch that  Mr.  Locke  has  asserted  and  proved,  beyond  the  possi- 
bility of  contradiction  on  any  solid  ground,  that  such  toleration  ought 
to  be  extended  to  all  whose  doctrines  are  not  subversive  of  society. 
The  only  sects  which  he  thinks  ought  to  be,  and  which  by  all  wise 
laws  are  excluded  from  such  toleration,  are  those  who  teach  doc- 
trines subversive  of  the  civil  government  under  which  they  live. 
The  Roman  Catholics  or  Papists  are  excluded  by  reason  of  such 
doctrines  as  these,  that  princes  excommunicated  may  be  deposed, 
and  those  that  they  call  heretics  may  be  destroyed  without  mercy ; 
besides  their  recognizing  the  Pope  in  so  absolute  a  manner,  in  sub- 
version of  government,  by  introducing,  as  far  as  possible  into  the 
states  under  whose  protection  they  enjoy  life,  liberty,  and  property, 
that  solecism  in  politics  imperium  in  imperioft  leading  directly  to 
the  worst  anarchy  and  confusion,  civil  discord,  war,  and  bloodshed. 
The  natural  liberty  of  man,  by  entering  into  society,  is  abridged 
or  restrained,  so  far  only  as  is  necessary  for  the  great  end  of  society, 
the  best  good  of  the  whole. 

In  the  state  of  nature  every  man  is,  under  God,  judge  and  sole 
judge  of  his  own  rights  and  of  the  injuries  done  him.  By  entering 
into  society  he  agrees  to  an  arbiter  or  indifferent  judge  between  him 
and  his  neighbors  ;  but  he  no  more  renounces  his  original  right  than 
by  taking  a  cause  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  law,  and  leaving  the 
decision  to  referees  or  indifferent  arbitrators.  In  the  last  case,  he 
must  pay  the  referees  for  time  and  trouble.  He  should  also  be  will- 
ing to  pay  his  just  quota  for  the  support  of  government,  the  law,  and 
the  constitution ;  the  end  of  which  is  to  furnish  indifferent  and  im- 
partial judges  in  all  cases  that  may  happen,  whether  civil,  ecclesias- 
tical, marine,  or  military. 

The  natural  liberty  of  man  is  to  be  free  from  any  superior  power 
on  earth,  and  not  to  be  under  the  will  or  legislative  authority  of 
man,  but  only  to  have  the  law  of  nature  for  his  rale.J 

In  the  state  of  nature  men  may,  as  the  patriarchs  did,  employ 

*  See  Locke's  Letters  on  Toleration.  J  Locke  on  Government, 

t  A  government  within  a  government. 


504  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

hired  servants  for  the  defence  of  their  lives,  liberties,  and  property  ; 
and  they  should  pay  them  reasonable  wages.  Government  was  insti- 
tuted for  the  purposes  of  common  defence,  and  those  who  hold  the 
reins  of  government  have  an  equitable,  natural  right  to  an  honorable 
support  from  the  same  principle  that  "  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his 
hire."  But  then  the  same  community  which  they  serve  ought  to  be 
the  assessors  of  their  pay.  Governors  have  no  right  to  seek  and 
take  what  they  please ;  by  this,  instead  of  being  content  with  the 
station  assigned  them,  that  of  honorable  servants  of  the  society,  they 
would  soon  become  absolute  masters,  despots,  and  tyrants.  Hence, 
as  a  private  man  has  a  right  to  say  what  wages  he  will  give  in  his 
private  affairs,  so  has  a  community  to  determine  what  they  will  give 
and  grant  of  their  substance  for  the  administration  of  public  affairs. 
And,  in  both  cases,  more  are  ready  to  offer  their  service  at  the  pro- 
posed and  stipulated  price  than  are  able  and  willing  to  perform  their 
duty. 

In  short,  it  is  the  greatest  absurdity  to  suppose  it  in  the  power  of 
one,  or  any  number  of  men,  at  the  entering  into  society,  to  renounce 
their  essential  natural  rights,  or  the  means  of  preserving  those 
rights  ;  when  the  grand  end  of  civil  government,  from  the  very  na- 
ture of  its  institution,  is  for  the  support,  protection,  and  defence  of 
those  very  rights ;  the  principal  of  which,  as  is  before  observed, 
are  Life,  Liberty,  and  Property.  If  men,  through  fear,  fraud,  or 
mistake,  should  in  terms  renounce  or  give  up  any  essential  natural 
right,  the  eternal  law  of  reason  and  the  grand  end  of  society  would 
absolutely  vacate  such  renunciation.  The  right  to  freedom  being  the 
gift  of  God  Almighty,  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  man  to  alienate  this 
gift  and  voluntarily  become  a  slave. 


n. 

THE  RIGHTS   OF  THE   COLONISTS  AS   CHRISTIANS. 

These  may  be  best  understood  by  reading  and  carefully  studying 
the  institutes  of  the  great  Law  Giver  and  Head  of  the  Christian 
Church,  which  are  to  be  found  clearly  written  and  promulgated  in 
the  New  Testament. 

By  the   act   of  the   British   Parliament,  commonly  called   the 


1772.1  LIFE   OP   SAMUEL  ADAMS.  505 

Toleration  Act,  every  subject  in  England,  except  Papists,  &c,  was 
restored  to,  and  re-established  in,  his  natural  right  to  worship  God 
according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience.  And,  by  the  char- 
ter of  this  Province,  it  is  granted,  ordained,  and  established  (that  is, 
declared  as  an  original  right)  that  there  shall  be  liberty  of  conscience 
allowed  in  the  worship  of  God  to  all  Christians,  except  Papists,  in- 
habiting, or  which  shall  inhabit  or  be  resident  within,  such  Province 
or  Territory,*  Magna  Charta  itself  is  in  substance  but  a  constrained 
declaration  or  proclamation  and  promulgation  in  the  name  of  King, 
Lords,  and  Commons,  of  the  sense  the  latter  had  of  their  original, 
inherent,  indefeasible  natural  rights,f  as  also  those  of  free  citizens 
equally  perdurable  with  the  other.  That  great  author,  that  great 
jurist,  and  even  that  court  writer,  Mr.  Justice  Blackstone,  holds  that 
this  recognition  was  justly  obtained  of  King  John,  sword  in  hand. 
And  peradventure  it  must  be  one  day,  sword  in  hand,  again  rescued 
and  preserved  from  total  destruction  and  oblivion. 


in. 

THE  EIGHTS   OF  THE   COLONISTS  AS   SUBJECTS. 

A  commonwealth  or  state  is  a  body  politic,  or  civil  society  of 

men,  united  together  to  promote  their  mutual  safety  and  prosperity 

by  means  of  their  union.$ 

J^p    A^Phe  absolute  rights  of  Englishmen  and  all  freemen,  in  or  out  of 

»    civil  society,  are  principally  personal  security,  personal  liberty,  and 

private  property.  / 

All  persons  born  in  the  British  American  Colonies  are,  by  the 
laws  of  God  and  nature  and  by  the  common  law  of  England,  exclu- 
sive of  all  charters  from  the  Crown,  well  entitled,  and  by  acts  of 
the  British  Parliament  are  declared  to  be  entitled  to  all  the  natural, 
essential,  inherent,  and  inseparable  rights,  liberties,  and  privileges 
of  subjects  born  in  Great   Britain  or  within  the  realm.     Among 

*  See  1  Wm.  and  Mary,  St.  2,  c.  18,  and  Massachusetts  Charter, 
t  Lord  Coke's  Inst.    Blackstone's  Commentaries,  VI.  p.  122.     The  Bill  of 
Eights  and  the  Act  of  Settlement. 
%  See  Locke  and  Vattel. 


506  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov. 

those  rights  are  the  following,  which  no  man,  or  body  of  men,  con- 
sistently with  their  own  rights  as  men  and  citizens,  or  members  of 
society,  can  for  themselves  give  up  or  take  away  from  others. 

First,  "  The  first  fundamental,  positive  law  of  all  common- 
wealths or  states  is  the  establishing  the  legislative  power.  As 
the  first  fundamental  natural  law,  also,  which  is  to  govern  even  the 
legislative  power  itself,  is  the  preservation  of  the  society."  * 

Secondly,  The  Legislative  has  no  right  to  absolute,  arbitrary 
power  over  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  the  people ;  nor  can  mortals 
assume  a  prerogative  not  only  too  high  for  men,  but  for  angels,  and 
therefore  reserved  for  the  exercise  of  the  Deity  alone. 

"  The  Legislative  cannot  justly  assume  to  itself  a  power  to  rule 
by  extempore  arbitrary  decrees  ;  but  it  is  bound  to  see  that  justice 
is  dispensed,  and  that  the  rights  of  the  subjects  be  decided  by  pro- 
mulgated, standing,  and  known  laws,  and  authorized  independent 
judges  " ;  that  is,  independent,  as  far  as  possible,  of  Prince  and 
people.  "  There  should  be  one  rule  of  justice  for  rich  and  poor,  for 
the  favorite  at  court,  and  the  countryman  at  the  plough."  f 

Thirdly,  The  supreme  power  cannot  justly  take  from  any  man 
any  part  of  his  property,  without  his  consent  in  person  or  by  his 
representative. 

These  are  some  of  the  first  principles  of  natural  law  and  justice, 
and  the  great  barriers  of  all  free  states  and  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion in  particular.  It  is  utterly  irreconcilable  to  these  principles 
and  to  many  other  fundamental  maxims  of  the  common  law,  com- 
mon sense,  and  reason,  that  a  British  House  of  Commons  should 
have  a  right  at  pleasure  to  give  and  grant  the  property  of  the  Col- 
onists. (That  the  Colonists  are  well  entitled  to  all  the  essential 
rights,  liberties,  and  privileges  of  men  and  freemen  born  in  Britain 
is  manifest  not  only  from  the  Colony  charters  in  general,  but  acts 
of  the  British  Parliament.)  The  statute  of  the  13th  of  Geo.  2, 
c.  7,  naturalizes  even  foreigners  after  seven  years'  residence.  The 
words  of  the  Massachusetts  charter  are  these  :  "  And  further,  our 
will  and  pleasure  is,  and  we  do  hereby  for  us,  our  heirs,  and  suc- 
cessors, grant,  establish,  and  ordain,  that  all  and  every  of  the  sub- 
jects of  us,  our  heirs,  and  successors,  which  shall  go  to,  and  inhabit 
within  our  said  Province  or  Territory,  and  every  of  their  children, 

*  Locke  on  Government.     JSalus  populi  suprema  lex  esto.  t  Locke. 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  507 

which  shall  happen  to  be  born  there  or  on  the  seas  in  going  thither 
or  returning  from  thence,  shall  have  and  enjoy  all  liberties  and 
immunities  of  free  and  natural  subjects  within  any  of  the  dominions 
of  us,  our  heirs,  and  successors,  to  all  intents,  constructions,  and  pur- 
poses whatsoever,  as  if  they  and  every  one  of  them  were  born  with- 
in this  our  realm  of  England." 

Now  what  liberty  can  there  be  where  property  is  taken  away 
without  consent?  Can  it  be  said  with  any  color  of  truth  and  jus- 
tice, that  this  continent  of  three  thousand  miles  in  length,  and  of  a 
breadth  as  yet  unexplored,  in  which,  however,  it  is  supposed  there 
are  five  millions  of  people,  has  the  least  voice,  vote,  or  influence  in 
the  British  Parliament  ?  Have  they  all  together  any  more  weight 
or  power  to  return  a  single  member  to  that  House  of  Commons  who 
have  not  inadvertently,  but  deliberately,  assumed  a  power  to  dis- 
pose of  their  lives,*  liberties,  and  properties,  than  to  choose  an 
Emperor  of  China  ?  Had  the  Colonists  a  right  to  return  members 
to  the  British  Parliament,  it  would  only  be  hurtful ;  as,  from  their 
local  situation  and  circumstances,  it  is  impossible  they  should  ever 
be  truly  and  properly  represented  there.  The  inhabitants  of  this 
country,  in  all  probability,  in  a  few  years,  will  be  more  numerous 
than  those  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  together  ;  yet  it  is  absurdly 
expected  by  the  promoters  of  the  present  measures  that  these,  with 
their  posterity  to  all  generations,  should  be  easy,  while  their  prop- 
erty shall  be  disposed  of  by  a  House  of  Commons  at  three  thousand 
miles'  distance  from  them,  and  who  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  the 
least  care  or  concern  for  their  real  interest ;  who  have  not  only  no 
natural  care  for  their  interest,  but  must  be  in  effect  bribed  against 
it,  as  every  burden  they  lay  on  the  Colonists  is  so  much  saved  or 
gained  to  themselves.  Hitherto,  many  of  the  Colonists  have  been 
free  from  quit  rents ;  but  if  the  breath  of  a  British  House  of  Com- 
mons can  originate  an  act  for  taking  away  all  our  money,  our  lands 
will  go  next,  or  be  subject  to  rack  rents  from  haughty  and  relent- 
less landlords,  who  will  ride  at  ease,  while  we  are  trodden  in  the 
dirt.  The  Colonists  have  been  branded  with  the  odious  names  of 
traitors  and  rebels  only  for  complaining  of  their  grievances.  How 
long  such  treatment  will  or  ought  to  be  borne,  is  submitted. 

Here  is  embodied  the  whole  philosophy  of  human  rights, 

*  See  the  acts  of  the  last  session  relating  to  the  King's  dock-yards. 


i 


508  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nc 


condensed  from  the  doctrines  of  all  time,  and  applied  to  the 
immediate  circumstances  of  America.  Upon  this  paper  was 
based  all  that  was  written  or  spoken  on  human  liberty  in  the 
Congress  which  declared  independence ;  and  the  immortal 
instrument  itself  is,  in  many  features,  but  a  repetition  of  the 
principles  here  enunciated,  and  of  Joseph  Warren's  list  of 
grievances,  which  followed  the  Rights  of  the  Colonists  in  the 
report.  If  we  look  back  to  the  first  efforts  of  Samuel  Adams, 
when,  as  a  young  essayist  in  the  obscure  little  weekly  paper 
of  his  native  town,  twenty-five  years  before,  he  boldly  advo- 
cated the  liberties  of  the  people  against  oppressive  rulers, 
Vwe  shall  find  that  his  ideas  on  these  subjects  were  as  firmly 
Tfixed  as  now,  when  he  gave  them  not  to  a  circle  of  provin- 
cial readers  alone,  but  to  the  world.  The  sentiments  are  the 
same,  and  the  man  who  adopted  them  must  have  been  by 
nature  an  assertor  of  popular  rights.  There  can  be  no  better 
proof  of  the  admirable  consistency  of  his  character  than  a 
patient  examination  of  his  works  throughout  his  long  life. 
At  the  age  of  fifty  he  found  no  reason  to  retract  a  word, 
or  retrace  a  step  ;  and  the  principles  with  which  he  had 
commenced  life  accompanied  him  to  the  close.  When  an- 
other century  had  dawned  upon  him,  and  he  was  fast  sinking 
into  the  grave,  his  sincere  admirer,  Thomas  Jefferson,  then 
just  elected  President  of  the  United  States,  wrote  to  his 
"  ever  respected  and  venerable  friend  "  :  "  Your  principles 
have  been  tested  in  the  crucible  of  time,  and  have  come  out 
pure.  You  have  proved  that  it  was  monarchy,  and  not  mere- 
ly British  monarchy,  you  opposed.  A  government  by  repre- 
sentatives, elected  by  the  people  at  short  periods,  was  our 
object,  and  our  maxim  at  that  day  was, '  Where  annual  elec- 
tion ends,  tyranny  begins.,  "  *  Jefferson's  remarks  were  ap- 
plicable, not  only  to  the  period  of  the  Revolution,  but  to  the 
whole  lifetime  of  Samuel  Adams.  The  spirit  which,  in  his 
boyhood,  dictated  the  college  thesis  advocating  the  lawful- 
ness of  resistance  to  tyranny  was  the  same  that  spoke  in  the 

*  Thomas  Jefferson  to  Samuel  Adams,  Feb.  26,  1801. 


1772.]  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  509 

Independent  Advertiser  five  years  later  for  the  right  of  re- 
monstrating public  grievances  and  against  the  exercise  of 
lawless  power.  Its  justice  and  consistency  was  shown  when, 
at  the  dawn  of  the  Revolution,  the  patriot  claimed  British 
privileges  as  the  birthright  of  his  countrymen,  and  called  on 
the  Representatives  to  maintain  and  assert  them  ;  and  when, 
in  the  Massachusetts  resolves,  he  fully  rehearsed  those  rights, 
and  struck  out  the  pathway  for  future  measures.  Now,  in 
1772,  the  same  great  principles  are  adhered  to.  He  had 
brought  them  triumphantly  forward,  keeping  public  atten- 
tion ever  fixed  upon  them,  till  they  were  not  only  adopted 
by  a  town,  but  established  as  the  guide  of  a  people  in  its 
march  to  freedom.* 

*  An  error  first  published  by  Gordon,  and  repeated  from  that  source  by 
Marshall  and  subsequent  authors,  was  for  many  years  persisted  in  by  writers 
on  the  American  Revolution,  that  James  Warren  of  Plymouth  was  the  origi- 
nator of  the  Committee  of  Correspondence ;  and  the  honor  of  the  invention 
has,  without  proof,  been  accorded  to  others.  Not  only  has  the  fact  descended 
in  family  story,  from  his  own  mouth,  that  Samuel  Adams  originated  this 
measure,  but  there  is  abundant  contemporary  testimony  to  support  it.  Hutch- 
inson, as  already  quoted,  repeatedly  asserts  it  in  his  private  letters,  and  the 
writings  of  Adams  himself  indicate  it.  Addressing  Bernard  on  the  progress 
of  the  Committees  of  Correspondence,  Hutchinson  says  :  — 

"  The  papers  enclosed  will  show  you  what  we  are  about.  Adams  brought 
about  eighty  towns  to  declare  against  the  authority  of  Parliament "  ;  and  in  a 
private  letter  to  Lord  Dartmouth,  denouncing  Samuel  Adams  as  the  leader 
and  manager  in  Massachusetts,  "But  his  chief  dependence  is  upon  a  Boston 
town  meeting,  where  he  originates  his  measures,  which  are  followed  by  the  rest 
of  the  towns,  and,  of  course,  are  adopted  or  justified  by  the  Assembly." 

Gordon,  though  generally  trustworthy,  never  had  the  fullest  confidence  of 
Adams  and  his  friends,  and  he  was  much  in  the  dark  as  to  the  Committee,  its  f 
origin  and  proceedings.  Warren  cheerfully  seconded  Adams  in  the  consum-  I 
mation  of  the  scheme  after  it  was  matured,  but  he  was  not  its  inventor,  and, 
like  others,  at  first  doubted  its  success.  When  John  Adams  was  Minister  to 
England  in  February,  1780,  the  plan  of  committees  of  correspondence  was 
being  generally  adopted  in  England  and  Ireland  for  the  redress  of  grievances. 
Remembering  with  whom  these  committees  had  originated  in  Boston,  he 
writes  from  Paris  to  Samuel  Adams,  then  a  member  of  the  Congress  in  Phil- 
adelphia :  — 

"  You  will  see  by  the  public  papers  that  your  committee  of  correspondence  I 
is  making  greater  progress  in  the  world  and  doing  greater  things  in  the  polit- 


510  LIFE  OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Not. 

The  list  of  "  infringements  and  violations  of  rights "  by 
Warren,  divided  into  twelve  articles,  treats  in  detail  of  the 
usurpation  of  powers  of  legislation ;  taxation  without  the 
consent  of  the  people  ;  the  appointment  of  new  officers  un- 
known to  the  charter  ;  the  introduction  of  fleets  and  armies 
to  support  these  unconstitutional  officers ;  the  annual  appro- 
priation by  the  King  of  fifteen  hundred  pounds  from  the 
American  revenue  to  support  the  Governor  and  other  crown 
officers  independently  of  the  people  ;  the  instructions  sent  to 
the  Governor,  threatening  an  entire  destruction  of  public 
liberties  ;  the  restrictions  upon  the  Legislature  ;  the  negativ- 
ing of  councillors  ;  the  surrendering  of  the  Castle  ;  the  ex- 
tending of  the  power  of  the  Courts  of  Yice- Admiralty  ;  the 

ical  world  than  the  electrical  rod  ever  did  in  the  physical ;  England  and  Ire- 
land have  adopted  it,  but,  mean  plagiaries  as  they  are,  they  do  not  acknowledge 
who  was  the  inventor  of  it." 

There  is  no  mistaking  this.  It  is  positive  and  to  the  point,  and  evidently 
refers  to  a  perfectly  well-known  fact.  Undoubtedly,  too,  Francis  Dana,  him- 
self a  personal  witness  of  these  events,  and,  in  1780,  a  member  of  the  Amer- 
ican legation  at  Paris,  had  been  conversing  with  John  Adams  on  this  very 
subject ;  for,  three  days  after  the  date  of  the  letter  from  which  the  above  ex- 
tract is  taken,  Dana  also  wrote  to  Elbridge  Gerry  at  Philadelphia :  — 

"  You  perceive  that  I  allude  to  their  county  meetings,  their  petitions,  but 
above  all  to  their  committees  of  correspondence  (of  which  you  may  read  much  in 
the  papers  of  this  month).  These  last  were  engines  which  operated  with  more 
energy  and  constancy  than  any  others  which  were  put  in  motion  in  the  com- 
mencement of  our  opposition.  They  may  be  called  the  corner-stone  of  our 
Revolution  or  new  empire.  Little,  I  believe,  did  our  friend,  the  first  mover 
and  inventor  of  them,  expect  to  see  this  masterly  stroke  of  policy  so  soon 
adopted  by  the  people  of  England  to  effect  the  redress  of  their  own  grievances. 
"What  will  be  the  issue  of  the  present  apparently  serious  opposition,  a  little  time 
will  show  :  but,  from  the  characters  who  take  the  lead  in  it,  I  conjecture  the 
great  body  of  the  people  will  be  made  instrumental  only  of  driving  out  the 
present  administration,  and  will  be  but  little  the  better  for  a  change.  They 
want  the  sage  counsel  of  our  said  friend  in  conducting  the  affairs  of  their  com- 
mittees of  correspondence  to  the  proper  point." 

Writing  to  Samuel  Adams  in  1790,  John  Adams,  looking  back  to  the  effect 
of  these  events,  says :  — 

"  Your  Boston  town  meetings  and  our  Harvard  College  have  set  the  uni- 
verse in  motion." 

There  is  the  clearest  evidence  that  Samuel  Adams  was  the  originator  of  tho 


1772.]  LIFE  OP  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  511 

deprivation  of  the  right  of  trial  by  peers  of  the  vicinage  ;  the 
restrictions  upon  manufactures  and  native  productions ;  the 
establishment  of  an  American  Episcopate  ;  and  the  alteration 
of  the  bounds  of  Colonies  by  decisions  before  the  King  and 
Council. 

The  "  letter  of  correspondence  to  the  towns,"  by  Benja- 
min Church,  takes  a  brief  and  comprehensive  view  of  the 
state  of  public  affairs  in  a  strain  of  the  happiest  eloquence, 
blended  with  a  dignity  worthy  the  occasion.  The  tenor  of 
the  "  rights  "  and  grievances  is  briefly  recapitulated,  enclosed 
with  the  letter  to  the  selectmen,  and  a  free  communication 
of  the  sentiments  of  each  town  is  earnestly  solicited.  The 
fullest  belief  is  expressed  that  the  wisdom  of  the  people 
would  not  "  suffer  them  to  doze,  or  sit  supinely  indifferent 

system,  put  it  in  action,  and  guided  its  course.  When  Hutchiuson,  in  the  next 
session  of  the  Legislature,  assailed  the  Committee  as  unlawful  and  of  danger- 
ous tendency,  Adams  was  its  special  advocate,  having  been  appointed  by  the 
town  to  prepare  an  answer  to  the  Governor's  objections.  (Boston  Gazette 
March  29,  1773.)  And  at  a  town  meeting  at  the  Old  South,  of  which  he  was 
Moderator  (Town  Records,  June  27,  1774),  when  the  Tories  attempted  to  pass 
a  vote  of  censure  upon  the  Committee,  Adams  again  became  its  champion,  hav- 
ing left  the  chair  and  taken  the  floor  for  that  express  purpose.  It  would  seem 
that  all  men  looked  to  him  as  the  father  of  the  Committee,  and  as  such  its  nat- 
ural defender  and  director.  (See  letters  from  members  of  the  Committee  to 
Samuel  Adams,  during  his  absence  in  Congress,  August  and  September,  1774.) 

Still  further  proof  is  given  by  John  Adams,  as  "  Novanglus,"  in  1775,  when, 
in  his  controversy  with  "  Massachusettensis,"  he  says  :  "  When  a  certain  mas- 
terly  statesman  invented  a  Committee  of  Correspondence  in  Boston,  which  has 
provoked  so  much  of  the  spleen  of  "  Massachusettensis  "  (of  which  more  here- 
after), did  not  every  Colony,  nay  every  county,  city,  hundred,  and  town  upon 
the  whole  continent,  adopt  the  measure,  —  I  had  almost  said,  as  if  it  had  been 
a  revelation  from  above  as  the  happiest  means  of  cementing  the  union,  and 
acting  in  concert  1  What  proofs  of  union  have  been  given  since  the  last  ? 
Look  over  the  resolves  of  the  several  Colonies,  and  you  will  see  that  one  under- 
standing governs,  one  heart  animates,  the  whole  body.  Assemblies,  conven- 
tions, congresses,  towns,  cities,  and  private  clubs  and  circles  have  been  actu- 
ated by  one  great,  wise,  active,  and  noble  spirit,  one  masterly  soul  animating 
one  vigorous  body."     (John  Adams's  Works,  IV.  34.     Bancroft,  VII.  234.) 

The  person  here  alluded  to  is  as  clearly  designated  by  the  terms  used,  as  if 
his  name  had  been  expressed.     See  Bancroft's  opinion  as  to  the  originator  of  • 
the  Committees  of  Correspondence,  VI.  428,  429. 


512  LIFE   OF  SAMUEL  ADAMS.  [Nov.,  1772. 

on  the  brink  of  destruction,  while  the  iron  hand  of  oppres- 
sion was  daily  tearing  the  choicest  fruit  from  the  fair  tree 
of  liberty,  planted  by  their  worthy  predecessors,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  their  treasure,  and  abundantly  watered  with  their 
blood." 


END   OF  VOL.   I. 


Cambridge :  Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


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